Kamen Rider Altis
by starofjustice
Summary: Madeleine's out to make her name as a reporter by tracking down the details of a series of bizarre monsters, and the knight-like figure bent on hunting them down. But will she be ready for what her investigation reveals?
1. Chapter 1

Kamen Rider Altis, Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters do belong to me.

Note: A friend of mine gave me a suggestion for a Kamen Rider series, and since he said he'd be flattered if I took his premise and wrote a story around it I decided to do so. I'm recycling the Taint from Kamen Rider Chapra because I liked the idea for them and didn't get to do much with them, but at the same time I've updated them so don't assume you know their story or how they work if you've read Chapra.

Dedication: To Bill and Amanda, may you always find each other.

Madeleine Moore took a long swig of the watery beer they poured in Jack's Shack. It was al lot like the local bar in any dusty town off the highway she'd seen before. The bar was scratched in more places than she could count and the screen door the covered the entrance hung from a single screw on its top fastening. The lights were dim and there was a stale smell in the air, but at least the place was quiet, so she had a little while to pump her scruffy new acquaintance for the story she'd come all this way to hear before happy hour.

"You know, you got the prettiest red hair…" he belched and grinned, reaching out for her flowing rust-colored locks, but she gently pushed his arm aside.

"Kev, do you think maybe you can tell the first woman who ever bought you a beer that little story I asked you about now…?"

"Fair's fair," Kev smiled, his eyes surprisingly clear for someone who'd just finished his second beer. As if his drunk come-on had been an act.

"Let's see," Kev said, scratching his stubbled chin with one hand. "It started about two weeks ago when Jesse's little girl didn't come from this campout she and her friends went to…"

Little Jessie. Her parents thought they were sooooo cute naming her after her dad like that. Let me tell you, she had the prettiest smile in the world, and she wore it everywhere she went. School, cheerleading practice, working the pro shop out in Sherwood Springs…

I tell ya, she was the darling of this whole town. There isn't anybody who wouldn't'a changed places with her when what happened in the woods that night…uh, happened.

Tests just wrapped up at school so Jessie got her bunch of friends together and head into the woods for the weekend to just cut loose. It seemed like half the families in town had somebody going along on Jessie's little trip. My little Joey was one of 'em. He spent all week before that promising me there weren't gonna be no alcohol, he weren't gonna be tryin' to get into Jessie's pants even though he was just crazy about her since they were in kindergarten together. Me and the wife, we knew better, but they was all growing up, and we were finally startin' to accept ya can't be lookin' over their shoulders forever.

So half the kids were out on this little weekend campout of theirs, and their parents all driving themselves crazy thinking' of all the things that'd go wrong while the kids were gone for two whole days with nobody watchin' 'em. And, well…somethin' did.

Monday mornin' rolled around, then Monday afternoon, and no sign of anybody who went on that getaway. Most of us thought they just wanted a little more time to celebrate finally bein' adults, but when it got to closin' time on Tuesday and still none of 'em was back home, most of the grown-ups in this town decided to go the woods and bring those kids of theirs back no matter what.

It wasn't until about one in the mornin' that we finally turned somethin' up. It was little Joey, all curled up in a ball behind some bushes and cryin' like he'd been that way for days. He probably had. A little later we found everybody else. They were in pieces in a big clearing, and most of 'em looked like something big ripped their guts out.

We tried to ask Joey what happened, but every single time somebody tried to talk to him he just started screamin' bloody murder. "The bugs! The bugs! Don't let 'em get me! Don't let the bugs get me!" Things like that. We didn't know what to do with him. Poor little kid attacked me when I tried to take him home. Had to knock him out just so we could take him to the hospital.

Some big city foreign…foren…some crime scene investigator came down to look at how our kids got cut up to try and figger out what did it. We don't have any big animals around here that could've killed a bunch of teenagers like that. So when the guy finished looking, he just got in his car and went right back to the city. We had a bunch of people outside waitin' to hear what happened and everything, but he just pushed right past 'em and drove away.

Everybody was scared good after that. People started talkin' about bears or cougars or something movin' into the woods and eatin' our kids for makin' all that noise. Jim swore blind there was some kind of werewolf livin' out in the woods and that it was gonna start eatin' the families closest to 'em after it finished killin' all the animals out there. But Jim thinks Martians kidnapped his wife, an' everybody knows she ran away with Doc Manning.

Point is, everybody in town either locked themselves in to cry their eyes out without anybody botherin' 'em or they were scared out of their minds whatever got their kids was gonna get them next. Speakin' personally, I didn't know what to think. Something did happen out in the woods. No doubt about it. Joey wasn't liable to start imaginin' things, even if he was scared out of his little skull, but what kind of bugs could do the kind of things that had happened to those kids?

A couple of days later this guy on a bike stopped in town. He talked to Mrs. Waters, that's the old lady who lives next door to me, about the room she was lookin' to rent in the back of her old place. Said he needed a place to stay and wasn't sure how long he'd be there. Was lookin' for somebody, he said.

You could set your watch by how he'd always climb onto that bike of his and just zoom out of sight at sunset every day. Mrs. Waters didn't like how he'd come back around four in the mornin', but he was payin' more than she was askin' for so she kept her mouth shut. I didn't know what to think of the guy myself. A couple times I tried to invite him over for a few beers in front of the game, but he'd always brush it off. Say something like "Thanks, but I have to find somebody," then he'd disappear in a cloud of dust on that bike. The guy was weird, but that was a nice bike…

Yeah, the guy. He looked kinda like a drifter, he had this long hair, kinda, brown. And he always looked like hadn't shaved for a couple days, but in all the time he was here I never saw his beard get any bigger.

But the thing you always noticed when you looked at him and he didn't have them sunglasses of his on was his eyes. He would look at ya and it was like he was lookin' right down into your soul, seein' all those things you don't want anybody to know. Sometimes when I was sittin' inside and heard him take off on his bike, I got to thinkin' about who he was lookin' for. And let me tell you, I was sure as hell glad it wasn't me.

One night I went over to Mrs. Waters to just shoot the shit, but main reason was to see if she knew anything about the guy livin' in her back room. She didn't tell me much, though. The name on his ID said Andy Mulligan, which I thought was weird cuz…he just didn't seem like an Shawn, you know? He seemed like somebody who went by a fancy long name like Anthony or Ulysses or…hell, I don't know.

Weirder thing was she couldn't remember what state issued it. She'd had a couple boarders come through town for a while and rent that room and she never forgot that. After they left she'd always come by and tell my wife how that girl who stayed in her back room wasn't anything like she'd heard about people from Tennessee or whatever.

But the weirdest thing about this Shawn guy was he'd just stay in the room all day. He opened the blinds in the mornin' so Mrs. Waters peeked in sometimes when she was workin' in her yard, but he just sat there with his back to the window all day. All day. Then around six he'd get up, put on his jacket and ride away for the night.

I stopped worryin' about him after a while. He wasn't botherin' his hostess, and the doctors said Joey was well enough to come home. I was happy to see my kid again, but when he got out of the car he just went straight up to his room and stared at the ceilin' 'til dinner time. He didn't talk much over dinner, and didn't go with us to church on Sunday. The wife wanted to send him to see a shrink, but there ain't any of those inside of fifty miles from here.

I didn't see Joey having a serious talk again until I came home kinda late one day and he was sittin' on the porch talkin' to Shawn. He got on his bike and disappeared before I could get out of the truck, and when I asked Joey what that guy wanted to talk about he looked me in the eyes and said, "The bugs, daddy. He wanted to know about the bugs."

I tried askin' about the bugs too, of course, but Joey just got all quiet and stared right off the porch at nothin' I could see. And me and the wife were afraid of havin' him have one of those…what do you call 'em, relapses? Relapses that we didn't want to push him too hard to think about the bugs.

But the night after that, Shawn's bike was still parked out next to the house after the sky was dark. Right away I figured something was wrong and went lookin' for Joey, but he was inside and just sittin' in front of the TV like the rest of the world didn't exist. I called Mrs. Waters and she told me Shawn was still there. He hadn't said anything to her, but he hadn't left his room since gettin' back from a four o'clock dinner.

I figured this I wasn't gonna let him just disappear. I put a six-pack in my cooler and sat down out on the porch to wait and see if he'd come out and get on his bike. He did after a while, but this time he had on this belt.

The buckle had these weird symbols on it like I couldn't even start to tell you about, lady. In the middle of it was this rectangular hole, 'bout as big as a cigarette lighter, maybe. Then on one side he had these three pouches about the size of the hole. The first one was red, then the other two were green and blue. I don't remember what order but those were the colors. I could swear I could see something glowin' a little from inside the first one.

Before he could ride away I came up to him and handed him a beer. "Hey Shawn," I said to him. "You goin' out to look for that guys of yours again?"

"Not exactly," he said then got out his keys, so I reached over and opened his beer for him.

"So what? You find him then?"

"You could say that, and I'm going to meet him now." He sounded so calm it was like he wasn't a person, like there was some kind of alien underneath his skin who didn't know how to sound real. Of course, with what happened right after that I mighta been right.

He was about to set that beer down on a fencepost when my wife came runnin' out of the house screamin' her lungs out. Tears was pourin' down her face. In the second I was takin' all this in I heard Shawn's bike roar and before I could stop him he was riding away like he always did.

"Damn, woman, what is it?" I said to her.

"Joey!" she bawled up at me. "Joey's gone! His window's wide open!"

"I bet I know where he went," I said and dropped them beers like a bad habit. I got into the truck, checked to make sure my .44 was still in the glove box, then I peeled out of there so fast I didn't even hear the cans explodin' under the tires. I was sick of this all this mysterious crap, and I was gonna find out what was goin' on.

I followed Shawn for a while. He looked back a couple times like he was makin' sure nobody followed him, but I've lived in this town my whole life and I know a thing or two about where's a good place to make sure nobody sees ya. It wasn't too long before I realized he was headin' outta town. Back to the woods where all those kids got cut up.

He parked next to the dirt road that goes into the woods, and I waited a while and went in after him. I checked under the seat and found my flashlight, then I went into the woods after him. At first I tried to see if I could find him without my flashlight so he wouldn't know I was there, but after a minute I bumped into enough branches I figured he musta heard me and turned it on anyway.

Next thing I knew something grabbed me from behind, twisted the arm with my gun so that I dropped it and curled its other arm around my neck. "What are you doing following me?" I heard a voice in my ear. It was Shawn.

"My kid's missin'," I said. Or I gasped, more like. "I saw you talkin' to him I figured you knew where he was."

"Damn," he said then he let me go. He stepped on my gun while he stood there shakin' his head. "This isn't your fight."

"Where do you get off sayin' something like that? Joey's around here, isn't he? He was talkin' to you about the bugs, whatever those are, and now he's gone and you came zoomin' out here when you heard that."

"Yes, I think he is," Shawn said. "He told about 'the bugs' that killed his friends. I came out here to find them. And I think he came hoping to see while I did it, to get some closure."

I was all, "Closure?"

"If they die that'll be the end. His friends will be avenged. He probably saw I was home later than usual and figured I was going after the bugs tonight," Shawn explained to me. I ain't never been much of a shrink, but what he told me some kinda sense. If Joey could see whatever killed his friends dead and buried, maybe he woulda been able to put it behind him.

"Then let's go," I told him. Shawn opened his mouth for a second then shook his head and went running into the trees. He got a flashlight of his own from the inside of his Shawnet and started swingin' it around lookin' for something. After we ran a minute I heard these weird sounds, kinda high-pitched. Sounded a little like crickets, but like really BIG crickets. A little after I heard that noise, I wasn't touchin' the ground anymore.

Shawn grabbed my arm before I could fall too far, but my flashlight dropped right out of my hand and rolled out of sight down the hole I was danglin' over. He pulled me out of that hole like I was a stuffed animal or something. With one hand. And maybe you notice I'm kind of a big guy.

"What in the HEEEEEELL made that?" I heard somebody who sounded just like me say.

"The bugs," Shawn told me. "And look." He dipped his fingers into this little puddle of red stuff on the ground. There was a little trail of it going back about teen feet or so from the edge of the hole, and down into the ramp inside it.

"That's blood."

"Human blood," he explained to me. I probably needed him to do that the shape I was suddenly in. Everything I thought I knew about the world seemed to just disappear into thin air right that second. Then he said something that brought me rushin' back.

"Stay here."

"Like hell. You're sayin' that my kid's blood, isn't it?" I wasn't thinkin' about how Joey beat us out there. Maybe whatever was down there grabbed him and took him away.

Shawn pulled something out of that red pocket on his belt. I couldn't see what it was, but it glowed a little just like I thought. "You're not equipped for this," he told me. "Just trust me that if your son's still alive, I'll bring him back."

He didn't wait for me to answer. He jumped down the hole and ran. It took me a second and then I jumped down after him. I landed kind of hard, my ankle still hurts a little, but I got up and ran hard as I could. Shawn hadn't gotten far, but I wasn't surprised to see why.

Doesn't mean I didn't nearly mess myself seein' what he saw.

In front of him were these big red ants. Big as dogs. They were making that cricket noise I heard up top, except it was even louder now. Shawn turned around and saw me there, cussed I think but obviously I couldn't hear him, then threw me his flashlight. Then I swore I lost my mind.

He took the glowing thing in his hand and stuck it in that rectangle hole in his belt buckle. His whole body started glowin' like whatever it was, then he had this black suit on with these red metal plates all over. He had this helmet on too, all silver but with these big yellow buggy eyes. I almost expected him to start talkin' back to the bugs and have 'em all eat me alive, but then he whipped out this hammer and squished the closest bug's head with it.

He was just swingin' it all over the place, and every time he did another of them bugs got smeared on the floor. A couple of them bit him, but they didn't look like they got through that suit of his. As soon as he killed the last one, he grabbed me and ran into that tunnel they came from. I heard more of them cricket noises coming up from behind us.

I had no idea where he was takin' me. On the way I saw other tunnels in the walls and he smashed a couple more ants with that hammer of his. I bet he could've smashed into Fort Knox with that that thing. But right then, I was tryin' to hang onto his promise to save Joey with it.

Suddenly we were inside this room. This huge, just gigantic room. I thought I heard the cricket noises comin' from everywhere, and that's probably exactly what I did. I swung the flashlight around lookin' for 'em, but in the middle of the room was this big chair. It was made out of rock, and sittin' on it was another one of them big ants.

Except it wasn't really an ant. It was bigger than the other ones, big as a guy, and it was sittin' in that chair like a regular guy. And it didn't exactly have six legs like the other ones. It had this long pair kind of like a normal person's, this little shriveled pair comin' out of its stomach, and another pair like arms. One of 'em had Joey off the ground by his throat. His eyes were shut tight but he kicked a little at the big ant. I wasn't even thinkin' when I brought my gun up and shot that big ant in the head. But it just bounced off. The ant looked up and saw us there. If bugs could look mad, this one did.

Shawn I saw holdin' his hammer like he wasn't sure what to do, but the ant did it for him. It dropped Joey and jumped at Shawn. Shawn hit it in the side like it was a giant baseball and before it even landed he was runnin' after it to hit it again.

But then it kicked him and knocked him across the room, and then it spat this…stuff at him. The stuff, I think it was acid or somethin'. It started eatin' into the metal on his suit, but then he pulled the red thing out of the hole in his belt, grabbed into another of them pockets, and pulled out a blue one and stuck it in there.

Just like before he started glowin' and his suit changed. This time the plates were blue, and he had this fin on his head like a shark. His hammer changed too, it was a spear now. 'Cept it was kinda weird…

The ant jumped on him again, but he rolled out of the way and jumped over these other ants, the little ones that showed up out of nowhere. The big one started makin' them cricket noises even louder and suddenly it seemed like the whole room was full of 'em, and every single one was chasin' after Shawn as he jumped around, tryin' to get away from 'em.

I ran over to Joey while the ants was leavin' us alone, but when I tried to pick him up and carry him out I saw the whole floor except for that chair was covered with the ants. The big one looked over at us, and I was afraid he was gonna jump on us and spray acid all over, but then Shawn was jumpin' at him. He stabbed that spear into the big ant's shoulder, then he lifted the big ant and tossed it to the other side of the room.

Then Shawn did the weirdest thing. I mean not really, I guess, but he held that spear straight up in front of him and waved one of his hands over his belt. Then he said something like "Oceanic Restoration," and threw the spear right at the big ant. It went right through it and stuck in the wall, and the ant started thrashin' around makin' these angry sounds, but then it just kinda…disintegrated.

And then the other ants started makin' those same angry noises and thrashin' around. This black…stuff started comin' out of 'em and go into the spear, and as it did they started gettin' smaller and smaller until they were just regular-sized ants. Over where the big ant was was this…guy. This dead, naked guy I'd never seen before. He had a hole through his stomach the same place the ant did, though.

After that, Shawn, regular old Shawn and not that knight thing he turned into, took us both outside and made sure we got home. After that, he drove away again and I ain't heard nothin' about him since.

Joey's doin' better, at least. He started smilin' and started lookin' for a job for a few days after that. He won't talk to me about Shawn, though. He just says "That's over, dad" and goes back to whatever he's doin'. I don't know who he really was or how he knew to come here, but…I'm glad all the same.

The screen door out front creaked a couple of local good old boys walked in. One of them took off his cap, rubbed his bald scalp and fixed Madeleine with a probing eye.

"Hey Kev, this that lady come to ask you 'bout the bugs? Didn't I tell you all that weird stuff was true after all?" he sniggered. "Shut up, Jim," Kev said and threw a handful of peanuts at him. "That all answer your questions, miss?"

Madeleine put away the tape recorder as the others ambled up to the bar and started, loudly, discussing the day with the bartender, taking that as her cue that her time was up. "Yes it does, thank you very much for your time."

"Don't thank me, thank Shawn if you ever find him," Kev replied and ordered a fresh beer. Madeleine made her way out of the bar and into the shining white car parked outside. She unlocked it, climbed in and motored away from Jack's Shack.

She had a long way to go before she heard her next story.


	2. Chapter 2

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters do belong to me.

Belly aching and hair heavy with grunge, Madeleine Moore pulled off the interstate into Dillon Post.

It wasn't a huge city, maybe about 500,000 people lived there. But after all the dusty towns she'd be trekking through these past few weeks, the towers of brown stone, actual stop lights and asphalt that hadn't been installed by the pilgrims made her feel she was back home.

She pulled into the motel where she was staying and tucked her hair under a ball cap before she dared step out of her car. As she got out she happened to notice a tall man standing on the other side of the street. He wore a denim vest and looked like he hadn't shaved in days. They locked eyes for a second, piercing gray eyes. Madeleine froze. For a second it felt like he was looking right through her, then a car passed between them.

Once it was out of sight, so was he.

With all due haste, Madeleine wolfed down a protein bar and took a shower before getting back into her car and driving to a spotless six-story office building that was one of the tallest in town. Above the main doors was a crest in the shape of a V and the slogan "Veere Into Savings" was emblazoned below it. She passed under it while hardly noticing and leaned on the edge of the front desk as a woman younger than her finished up a phone call.

"I'm here to talk to Mr. Veere about the…incident at one of his warehouses a while ago," Madeleine said.

"Ah yes, the reporter," the secretary said with a completely blank face.

"Yes, the reporter."

"Top floor, northeast corner. They'll be expecting you," the secretary said and busied herself with a stack of papers. Madeleine didn't need a second invitation. She walked to a bank of elevators, showed a pair of hulking guards there were nothing inside her bag more life-threatening than a tape recorder and tube of lipstick, and hit the first call button she came to.

The ride to the top floor was a quick one, but as she took it she couldn't help thinking of that man she'd seen across the street. Those eyes. When she'd seen them, she'd felt like…

…like he knew all her secrets.

Then she heard the ding of arrival and stepped out. After persuading another pair of guards she wasn't an assassin, Madeleine was escorted into the office of Julian Veere himself. Founder of Veere Markets, a small but well-known chain of grocery stores.

When he stood up from behind his desk that looked like it cost more than her car, he seemed tall but not imposing. She'd been daunted by the first couple of business owners she'd met, but he seemed fairly tame. For a man in his early sixties Veere was fairly handsome, and his thick hair was a majestic gray.

"Miss Moore, please come in and sit down," he said with a well-honed smile. "May I offer you a drink?"

"Thank you, but I'd rather get right down to business," Madeleine replied and took a seat in the leather chair he'd indicated.

His smile didn't waver. "A woman after my own heart." He shuffled through the papers covering his desk and put a sheaf of blue pages in front of him. "Before I tell you this, Miss Moore, I'd like to restate that I witnessed none of these events for myself. However, I'd like to minimize ugly rumors circulating through the workforce by having someone else tell you this."

"Understandable."

"Good," Mr. Veere said. "Now, this report comes from one of our food storage facilities a few hours' drive from here. It was filed by a watchman by the name of Carl Jacobi. Apparently over the course of two days, someone how somehow managed to sneak in and break open several cartons of meat…"

* * *

It seems weird that the warehouse was broken into two nights in a row and nobody noticed that anything had been taken until the second time it happened. Looking back, I'm tempted to say the supervisors knew what had happened, but didn't want to risk their positions telling crazy stories to their superiors.

The head of the night shift had allegedly told the staff who witnessed the damaged meat containers to stay quiet about what they saw, then dispose of the damaged product and say there had been a shipping error that had previously gone unnoticed. After it happened a second time, he got worried and announced the discovery to central, who told him to hire more security personnel.

Until we could find out what was going on, a new policy was implemented that no one was to make their rounds alone. The guy I was partnered with was named Shawn Mugel. Apparently he'd just moved into the area, but had a security career stretching back six years.

He was a good guard. Quick but thorough, always alert for the smallest thing. He focused all his attention on the job, though, which made him a little hard to be partners with. I would ask him about the game or what he did on his days off, and he would always ignore me and confirm our route for the night or something similar.

It may not be strictly professional to say so, but whenever he'd make eye contact with me, I couldn't help shivering. It seemed like he was reading my mind, and it didn't make me feel any better that I was the only one he'd be working with. Sometimes I felt like he thought I knew what was going on, other times I felt like he knew who was doing those break-ins did but wasn't saying. I guess I was closer to the truth than I thought.

After we hired more guards, nothing happened for about a week and a half. I tried to get Shawn to talk to me again, asked him if he was worried about losing his job because nothing was going on.

Like always, he didn't say anything. At least, not right way. When we were halfway across the building, he turned to me all of a sudden and said, "Let's check the meat storage."

I asked if he heard something, then I asked him how he could've heard something from that far away. He didn't answer, he just ran off.

I figured he did hear something and didn't want to waste time explaining what. He finally had the chance to show he was doing his job, after all. If he could do that, he could probably hold onto it a while longer. I chased him down a few turns until we were outside the refrigerated storage section. Once we were there I heard something too, like something ripping into a crate and growling.

Shawn didn't draw his weapon or anything as he kicked open the door and ran inside. I did, but I was even more confused by the way he'd acted when I saw what was making the noise.

This still sounds hard to believe, but standing there over an open carton of ground beef was a werewolf. Dark brown fur, blazing yellow eyes and teeth that looked like they could take my arm off. It had meat all over its face and it arched its lips as Shawn and I went running in. Shawn went did this karate pose, and in one hand I thought he was holding something gray that glowed a little. I didn't give him the chance to do something stupid, or least that's what I thought at the time. I tried to shoot the werewolf.

Next thing I knew, I looking at the ceiling through stars. Shawn was standing over me and it looked to me like he was glowing gray for a second. I thought it was just an after effect of whatever had knocked me flat, but then I thought about the glowing thing in his hand and wasn't so sure.

I asked what just happened and he pointed to another door that had been ripped off the hinges. I could hear something running down it but after a second the sound was gone. After what I'd just seen, I was happy to let it go.

Shawn called an ambulance because he said the wolf got me good on the head before it ran away. I felt fine, but I won't deny I was pretty shaken up by what happened. And, I'm not ashamed to admit, I was grateful for the chance to get away from work for a little while after my run-in with a werewolf.

I was expecting a call from my boss the next morning telling me not to bother coming in after Shawn told our story about the werewolf, but that's the exact opposite of what happened. I was called in early and found myself sitting in the security chief's office with Shawn. He showed us a tape of the parking lot from just about the time I woke up on the floor.

It showed a dark shape, like a really big dog, run out the back door and clear the perimeter fence like it was nothing. Martinez, that being the security chief, sat behind his desk, folded his hands and asked us if we had any idea what the thing we'd seen was. Shawn didn't say anything, so I spoke up and said I had no idea. It looked like a werewolf, but that I'd never seriously believed in them until the night before. Martinez sat there for a minute without saying anything himself, then told us to show up for work at our regular time and that the police were going to be patrolling the area for a while.

I don't think the door to Martinez's office closed before Shawn turned to me and told me to take a leave of absence and go into hiding. "It's got your scent, Carl. It could come after you if it thinks you're a threat," he told me.

I asked him how it could possibly think I was a threat because pretty much the only thing I remembered from our run-in was waking up on my back, but then I asked how Shawn would know anything about the werewolf.

He didn't answer my question. He just shook his head and told me again to go into hiding then he walked away. I went back to my house and tried to relax in front of the game, but all I could think about was the werewolf busting through my window and tearing me apart. I reported for work as usual, but found out someone else was going to be my partner. Shawn had quit that afternoon.

I started to think the only reason Shawn got a job there was because he knew somehow the werewolf would show up. I even thought maybe there was something more than normal about him, with those eyes of his. I spent my whole shift on pins and needles, expecting the werewolf to come back, both to eat and to take me out. By the time I wrapped up my shift, nothing had happened and I almost laughed at myself. I hadn't done a thing to the werewolf, why would it want to come after me? If anyone had done anything it was Shawn.

I got home, crawled into bed and went to sleep like I knew there was no such things as werewolves. I didn't exactly wake up to the sound of something smashing through my window. But before I woke up completely I remember having this dream, that wasn't really a dream.

I was back in the warehouse that night Shawn and I saw the monster. I heard a gun go off and realized it was me shooting at it, and saw the werewolf jerk like I'd hit it in the side. It jumped and knocked me down, but as I fell I saw Shawn pull up his shirt and reveal this weird belt buckle underneath. It had an empty space in the middle and he put that gray glowing thing in his hand into it. I heard this voice saw something, I think it was "wanderer." Then the next thing I knew he had on this black suit with gray armor all over it. He had these big, bright yellow eyes. I don't know why I remember those so well, other than that's what I remember about Shawn's real face. The eyes.

Then he kicked the werewolf and knocked it down. It got right back up and tried to bite him but he punched it in the forehead and it must've flew fifteen feet before it landed. He went after it, jumping so high he almost touched the ceiling then he did a kick at the werewolf's head as he came down. It got out of his way just in time and ran on all fours behind another row of meat cartons. It ripped the back door off its hinges and was gone just like that. Shawn pulled the glowing thing out of his belt and turned back to normal. That's what I saw when I came to the first time.

Outside, I could hear my dog barking, and I was about to go back to sleep when I realized it wasn't the kind of barking where someone's jogging past the house. She was scared, like there was someone in the yard. I heard her yip in pain and the next thing I knew I was more awake than I'd ever been. I started digging through the pile of laundry I'd left my uniform in for my gun, but just as I found it on the nightstand I heard glass breaking downstairs. Then I heard something sniffing around down there. Very loudly.

It was just starting to get dark outside, and it if was the werewolf like I thought it was, it'd have the advantage if I tried to climb out my window and make a run for it. I shut the door, locked it and put all the furniture I could move in a hurry in front of it, then positioned myself in front of the window so I had a way out in case I couldn't stop it before it got close enough to attack. I actually tried to remember for a second if I had any silver bullets in the house.

The sniffing got closer, then it stopped right outside my bedroom door. I aimed my gun and got ready for the worst, and that's exactly what happened. The door flew open and both it and the furniture I'd pile around it crunched into a big pile of jagged, expensive firewood. And there on all fours in my doorway was the werewolf. It wasn't like before. Its fur was black, and growing out of one shoulder was this other little wolf head, and another stubby little head was starting to grow out of the other one. When I'd seen it before it just looked mad that I'd interrupted its dinner. This time, it looked crazy. There was this fire in its eyes. All six of them. It was there for blood.

The werewolf jumped at me and knocked me through the window. We fell forever before I landed on the lawn. I couldn't feel anything from landing on my back, but I have any trouble seeing the werewolf open its biggest mouth and then lunge for my throat.

But, obviously, it didn't get to finish me off. Suddenly there were these big metal gloves holding the werewolf by the neck, and it pulled the thing away from me. The werewolf wrestled with the guy wearing the gloves, and I could see it was Shawn, wearing that suit with the big yellow eyes. They wrestled back and forth a little then Shawn picked up the werewolf and threw it into the street.

I was starting to be able to feel my body enough to sit up and watch what was going on. The werewolf jumped at Shawn but he kicked it into a spin before he jump-kicked it out of the air. But the werewolf landed on its feet, and then its claws were glowing red and it slashed Shawn on the chest. I heard him yell, and before he could fight back the wolf sank its teeth into _his_ throat, and the little ones bit into his shoulders. He groaned but he slammed his fists into the heads on the shoulders and made them let him go. Then he punched the main head in the jaw, and I heard bone crunching.

The werewolf stumbled back with its jaw dangling there. It looked up at Shawn and from the way it growled instead of making some kind of pain noise so I was thinking it was more mad at Shawn for hurting it. It crouched like it was about to attack again, but Shawn jumped and did another jump-kick coming toward the werewolf. As he did I heard him say "Altis Kick" and the boot he was doing the kick with started glowing kind of gray/white and trailing the glow behind him.

The kick knocked the werewolf past my neighbor's car so I couldn't see what happened next, but Shawn touched his belt buckle and said "restore." This black slime kind of stuff flowed through the air into his belt buckle from the way the werewolf had gone. The gray glowing thing in his belt buckle turned black for a second, then glowed gray again, almost white. Shawn turned to look at me, but before I could say anything he ran off and a second later I heard this motorcycle rev up and speed into the distance.

I got up and limped over to where I could see around the car, and there was this dead guy there. His jaw hung off on this impossible angle and he had these black burns on his shoulders where the werewolf's other heads had been. I got inside as fast as I could and called the cops.

* * *

"…and that's the end of Jacobi's report," said Julian, setting the sheaf of papers back on his desk. He fixed her with a neutral expression as if waiting to see how she reacted before deciding what his own reaction should be.

"Is he still with the company?" she asked.

"The security footage showing Shawn Mugel fighting a wolf-creature and the investigation of the warehouse uphold his story and the FBI's finished with him, so yes, he's been allowed to return to his job. Police have been searching for Shawn Mugel but have turned up nothing. It's my belief that Shawn Mugel was only a carefully crafted alias, and he's probably already adopted another. As for him possessing superhuman powers and absorbing black filth, I am not prepared to comment."

"Thank you Mr. Veere, I think I've got it all," Madeleine said.

"Not at all, my dear," he smiled. "I hope you can find this man. It would answer a lot of questions."

Madeleine made her way out of the building and back to her car. Every time she talked to someone else about this things got even weirder. She hadn't been this excited when her parents took her outside to show her one last present she was getting for her sixteenth birthday.

The streets were dark by the time she made it back to the street. As she fumbled in her purse for her keys, she had the sensation of eyes on her back. Madeleine whirled around and spotted a man with piercing eyes even in the darkness watching her across the street. She caught a glimpse of an elaborate belt buckle for a second until just like before, a car passed him and then he was gone as if he'd never been there.


	3. Chapter 3

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters do belong to me, and may not be used without express permission.

Every time a motorcycle passed her on the way into Carstairs City, Madeleinee did her best to steal a glance at the rider's eyes. It was no good. Most were wearing impenetrable dark glasses or goggles, and of the few she could get a glimpse of before they roared past none had the piercing eyes of that stranger she'd noticed staring at her back in Dillon's Post.

Why would he be following her, anyway, the thought occurred. If he was on some kind of monster hunt, the dates between the reports and her hearing the accounts indicated he had a major head start on her. How would he know she was following his trail, anyway? She hadn't sent in any of her findings yet, and that was presuming he even had someone inside the American Graphic. And why would he have someone inside a dinky little rag like that?

A few times she thought she could feel those eyes she'd seen drilling into her back, but when she would look into the rearview mirror there was never a motorcycle in sight, or even a vehicle that could've been carrying one. Madeleine sighed and just pressed down harder on the gas pedal. She had to get into the city and talked to the next person on her itinerary. At least then she'd feel a little more justified in constantly looking over her shoulder for bikers with…eyes.

The blare of a truck horn shocked Madeleine into the realization that she was veering into the middle of the next lane, right in front of a sixteen wheeler. She screeched back onto her own little strip of road and the trucker floored it as if trying to get past her before she could do something else stupid. As he went past she noticed a scruffy-looking fellow in a beat-up old jacket riding shotgun. Probably a hitchhiker. He met her eyes for just a second, but that was all it took to spot a red sort of glare lingering behind.

Then he and the truck were past, and Madeleine was fine with that.

* * *

Madeleine staggered into the parking lot of the motel she'd booked half an hour later, her legs completely numb from hours of non-stop driving. Steadying herself against her car, she checked the details of her next contact. Omar Drake. Residence not too far away. No specific meeting time, just that afternoon.

It was still around eleven, and she was anxious to get to the next person on her list and hear the story from his mouth. And she did have a deadline coming up at the end of the following week with an entire list of accounts she had yet to receive.

And yet, she felt no sense of urgency to get over to Drake's place as quickly as possible and add his story to the box of tapes that was quickly filling up in the trunk of her car. Her eyes were bleary and her legs felt like she was wearing three-ton shoes. She actually looked down for a second to confirm she wasn't, and mentally kicked herself after she realized what she was doing.

She was going to get this story. It was going to be what finally got her out of her starving journalist niche and onto bigger and better things.

But for the moment she imagined she'd still have to live like a human being, and human beings needed things like sleep. She trudged into the motel, proved who she was, got her key, and made her way to the door on the left of a hallway that managed to stretch approximately sixty-seven miles before she got to it.

She threw her bag onto the bed, set up the alarm clock the motel provided, then out of professional courtesy picked up her cell and dialed the number underneath Omar Drake's name. She waited for four rings before a cheerful automated woman answered.

"We're sorry, but Omar Drake is currently unable to come to the phone. Please leave a message at the tone. *BLEEP*"

"Hello, Mr. Drake. This is Madeleinee Moore with the American Graphic. I arranged a meeting to hear your story this afternoon. I have a few things to take care of but I'll be over as soon as I'm able."

She put the phone down, then flopped onto the bed and in seconds was snoring.

* * *

Madeleine didn't normally remember her dreams, but things had hardly been normal for her this last week, even for her.

She was walking along the side of a country road, framed by fields of golden grass on either side, reminding her of the ending of the old Incredible Hulk TV series. She had on a heavy parka and a heavier backpack, and turned at the sound of a car coming her way. She waved frantically at the tarnished orange vehicle, but the driver stomped the gas and it chugged past her even more quickly and noisily.

Annoyed and dejected, she walked on as a frigid breeze picked up and blew her hair wildly over her shoulder. Madeleine tried to think of where she was going and why she was going there, but nothing came. All she could think about was how cold it was getting.

Another car passed without stopping, and this time Madeleine thought she could see the driver laughing as he sped away. She growled to herself, and kept trudging along to who-knew-where.

The clouds started to turn dark and thunder rolled across the sky. Madeleine sighed and braced herself for a pelting rain. Just what she needed.

As the first few drops fell like bullets against her face, however, she heard a sound in the distance and realized it wasn't a crack of thunder. It was the horn of a car. A car that pulled to the side of the road next to her. The driver leaned over and rolled down the window. Physically rolled it down. Still, she'd learned long ago to recognize an opportunity when she saw it and jogged over.

"You need a lift, lady?" asked the driver, a middle-aged man with a fine brown coif and a worn trench coat.

"Sure! You're a lifesaver, mister."

He smirked at her. "I wouldn't be so sure about that."

"What?" Madeleine asked, not liking the menacing tilt of his lips.

He snarled, and in the blink of an eye he'd become a black-furred werewolf, with a smaller head sprouting from each shoulder. Then he lunged at her, punching a hole right through the door as he went for her throat.

* * *

Madeleine's eyes snapped open and she heard more than felt her heart thumping in her chest. A static-filled radio broadcast blared throughout the motel room, "-authorities have declined to comment on a the cause of a bizarre murder last night in Port Algon. Witness claim the body look as if it had been chewed in half, and the perpetrator fled the scene when two local residents approached. No details are available regarding the suspect or the victim at this time, however locals are claiming this to be the latest incident in the spate of recent 'monster attacks.' "

Saved by a report on the same monsters I'm chasing, she thought with a morose sort of amusement.

She thought about turning off the sound by throwing it out the window but just fumbled with the switch until it finally stopped instead. She sighed then got up and ran her hair underneath the shower and spent a minute straightening her hair and getting herself presentable. She glanced at her cell phone and saw there were no messages, so Omar hadn't gotten back to her about being available for their interview. On the other hand, it meant her editor hadn't decided to shorten her deadline again either.

Which didn't mean the deadline she had was getting any further away. After hastily putting on her last set of clean clothes she gathered up her things and drove over to Omar Drake's address as quickly as she could. It was a split-level in a moderately clean part of the city. She found a spot to park out front, then approached the door in her best poised, professional walk.

She rang the bell. After two minutes, there was no answer. She rang again. Another two minutes, still no answer.

"Mr. Drake isn't home," a tiny voice to her left said. Madeleine turned and peeking out furtively from behind the corner of the building was a little dark-skinned girl. Her face was caked with dirt and her shirt and pants were even more filthy. Her black hair was a birds nest of tangles. Probably homeless. And from the way she gripped the edge of the building it looked like she felt she was taking a big risk saying those four words to Madeleine.

"Who are you?" Madeleine asked, taking care not to come on too strong or sound like she wasn't taking her seriously for being a child. "How do you know Mr. Drake?"

"He saw it. He saw the monster. But then he started having nightmares. He screamed all night 'til they took him away to the hospital and he never came back," the girl explained. "I saw the monster too, but nobody came to take me to the hospital."

"You saw the monster?"

"I saw him before he was a monster," the girl replied, looking over one shoulder.

"Can you tell me about the monster?" Madeleine asked as gently as she could, not getting any closer in case she might scare off the little girl.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because I'm a reporter trying to find out where they come from, and who the guy is who goes around fighting them," Madeleine answered. The girl's eyes went wide.

"You know about him too?"

"Look kid, you saw the monster, right? Will you maybe tell me about it over dinner?"

The girl looked at her apprehensively for a second, then nodded.

"Great. You like tacos?"

* * *

It appeared the little girl did indeed like tacos, and within the first two minutes of their food being delivered her cheeks were smeared with beef and beans.

"When was the last time you ate, kid?" Madeleine asked as she devoured a cheese quesadilla with only slightly more restraint.

"Tana," she replied. "My name's Tana."

"Well, Tana, do you think you can tell me anything about the monster Mr. Drake saw?"

Tana hesitated, licked some gobbets of food off her face and sat down on the ragged booth cushion with a thump. "You really think they'll let you use anything a kid tells you?"

"To be perfectly honest? No," Madeleine answered. "But that doesn't mean I think you have nothing to say that can help me understand what's going on."

"Well…okay. The first time I saw him was maybe about two weeks ago…"

* * *

Paulie was just another guy sleeping underneath the bridge down on Fifth Street.. He never said where he came from or how he got here. He didn't seem dangerous or anything, but he looked tired all the time, and I could never really see his eyes. He didn't talk tuh us a lot, but sometimes when it got cold, he'd make a fire an' he never stopped anybody from using it too. Sometimes he'd bring everybody food so we didn't have tuh go lookin' that night. It was usually kinda stale, but we didn't care.

But see, most of the time Paulie didn't wanna talk or be around anybody else…He'd go away in the middle of the night every day, and when he came back under the bridge every morning he'd go tuh sleep all day.

About a week after I met Paulie, this guy on a motorcycle started showing up. He'd sorta ride around the bridge a couple times, and look around like he was pissed off an' lookin' for somebody. I saw him talkin' to one of the grown-ups once, but I don't know about what. I didn't really want to go over and listen. That guy…he had these eyes. Even from far away they were like these little stars in his face, but like, they weren't. I mean…I dunno.

A little after that, right when we was gonna go over tuh that soup kitchen where Mr. Drake volunteered, the guy with the motorcycle came back with a bunch of bags from this chicken place near the bridge. He gave 'em tuh me and some of the grown-ups who wuz hungry enough to take food off a stranger, and I tried tuh find Paulie to give him some but he was already gone. I didn't get that, 'cuz he always said he was leavin' before he did.

Next mornin', I sorta found out why.

Paulie was asleep where he usually was. I was gonna wake him up and give him the chicken I didn't eat before, but I heard him makin' these weird kinda growly noises in his dream. And he moved is arms weird, like he was dreamin' he could fly, or somethin'.

He never did that before, so I kinda backed off and just finished the chicken myself. It was cold, but maybe ya noticed I ain't picky.

Later, Paulie's still asleep, but then I heard this motorcycle coming, and like that he was standin' up and lookin' like he saw a ghost. It was the guy who talked tuh the grown-ups and brought us dinner ridin' over the bridge, but all of a sudden he pulled over and looked down at Paulie. Paulie looked back, and then he was runnin' faster'n I ever seen anybody runnin' before. The motorcycle guy turned around and followed him, and I thought about goin' after'm, but I figgered there probably wasn't nothin' I could do. Look, Paulie was a nice guy, but ya don't live long gettin' mixed up where ya don't belong.

I went over tuh this lot a couple blocks over where some of the other kids play sometimes, but nobody was there that day. It was startin' tuh look like it was gonna rain, so it made sense. I went over tuh Mr. Drake's place, cuz sometimes he let me come in and watch TV. It was kinda weird how he never tried to make me go to school or nothing'…said I had tuh make that decision myself. He wasn't home either, which wuz kinda weird cuz he usually didn't go tuh work until kinda late in the afternoon.

But the weird thing was I saw Paulie sneakin' away from Mr. Drake's house, like he just went there too. He was lookin' over his shoulder but after what he did that mornin' I hid and he didn't see me. He walked faster'n I decided tuh follow him, cuz I noticed he had these brand new sunglasses on. He never had money, so I figured he stole 'em. And if he stole 'em maybe he stole other things, and if he stole other things maybe he stole something from the motorcycle guy. An' since I couldn't uh-magine anybody wantin' tuh kill anybody over sunglasses, I figured Paulie was in trouble.

I started followin' him without him seein' me, somethin' I'm kinda good at, until he got to the newspaper place Mr. Drake owned a little way away. As soon as Paulie got inside he looked like he was yellin' at the lady behind the counter. I guess he wanted tuh talk tuh Mr. Drake, cuz the lady went into the door in the back and a minute later both of 'em came out and talked tuh Paulie for a minute. Then Paulie and Mr. Drake went in the back. I ran around the back of the building and I saw the window was open, so I ducked under it tuh listen.

"I'm tellin' ya, he's after me!" I heard Paulie say. "He knows about me! He knows about this!" I looked in after he said that, and Paulie had his sunglasses off, and he had these huge purple eyes. Like, bug eyes. I mean, real bug eyes. Mr. Drake looked at him, and he didn't look that scared, but his hands were white from holdin' onto his chair. Cuz his hands ain't white. I had tuh bite my lip so I didn't scream. Paulie hadn't been like that the day before.

Mr. Drake said something like, "Your changes must be getting stronger. What do you think he'll do when he finds you?"

"What do yah think? He's gonna kill me! He already killed so many of the others!" Paulie was screamin' by now, and then these two stick things started pokin' out of his hair. Even scarier, there were these two little…arms, I guess, with these like spikes on the end, poked out of his mouth.

I wasn't listenin' anymore, I was runnin'. Back tuh the bridge, cuz I hoped the motorcycle guy was whoever Paulie was talkin' about. Cuz I hoped he could do something about Paulie bein' a monster.

I ran tuh the bridge, breathin' hard and people told me later, white like a ghost. But there the guy was, ridin' over the bridge just as I got there. I started screamin' and waving' my arms, and he turned around and rode back. I almost couldn't look at his eyes, but I noticed he didn't look at me like some dumb kid. He looked kinda…annoyed, I guess, with the way he pushed his eyebrows together, but his mouth was open a little like he was worried.

"What is it?" he asked me.

"Are you lookin' for a monster?" I said, then couldn't believe I said somethin' so stupid. He didn't think so, obviously, cuz he got off his motorcycle and walked over to me.

He was like, "What do you know about a monster?"

And I was like, "That guy you're looking, for Paulie? You're looking for him, right? He just turned into some kinda bug thing, and-" He interrupted me as soon as I said that. "Where? Where is he? Just give me the general direction."

"Not til you tell me what you're gonna do with him," I said. I was surprised at myself for how I didn't just cave and tell him where Paulie was. I felt kinda weird how this stranger was takin' me so serious, but even more weird how I didn't want him to hurt Paulie. There weren't many people who didn't treat me like crap, even with the other people with no place to live. I knew what the motorcycle was probably gonna have tuh do, but I kinda hoped he wouldn't.

"If the changes are happenin' by themselves, then there's nothin' tuh do except kill the infected person," he said. I made a fist, but it started tuh make sense. Why Paulie was always gone at night. Why he made those weird noises in his sleep. He was some kinda monster who went huntin' at night, and the motorcycle guy was supposed tuh stop him.

I wanted tuh yell at him, tuh tell him tuh just catch Paulie and take him someplace where he could get better, but I knew there was nothin' else we could do. I pointed in the way back tuh Mr. Drake's place.

The guy got on his motorcycle and zoomed away before I got tuh say anythin' else, but I started runnin' back the way I came. I was tired so I didn't go too fast, but I saw Paulie come out he back of the building and try to run down the little back street behind it. His eyes, the big bug ones, they were kinda startin' tuh glow. His hair was fallin' out and those stick things on his head were longer, and kinda bent forward. He saw me and ran the other way, but then the motorcycle guy pulled up that way.

"You led him tuh me," Paulie said, and his mouth started to crack wider, with those things pushing their way out.

The motorcycle guy got off his motorcycle and pulled out this weird kinda rectangle made outta glass, or maybe it was a jewel. He put it intuh the middle of this weird belt buckle, and I heard this voice say "wanderer."

Paulie's coat started to rip, and then these four fly-sorta wings came out of his back. But the motorcycle guy was changin' too. His whole body started glowin', and then he had on this kinda, suit of armor. It was all silver over this black suit, and it had these big red eyes. The eyes turned yellow and he kept on walkin' at Paulie, though.

Then I almost threw up. Paulie's skin started tuh rip off. I swear a little bit hit me right between the eyes. When I looked up he wasn't a skeletoon or anything he was a giant one of those…what do you call those dirty butterflies? Moths. He screamed at the motorcycle guy, or the knight, I guess. Paulie flew at him but the knight kicked him intuh the wall and went to kick him again, but Paulie flew away. He flew at the knight and bit him on the shoulder, but the knight karate chopped him on the back.

Paulie, or whatever he really was, grabbed the knight and flew up intuh the air. It looked like Paulie bit him a couple times, but then there was this kinda green flash, and he, the knight guy, had on green armor now. And he had a sword. And then he slashed and cut off one of Paulie's wings. Paulie dropped him and he started fallin', but Paulie spitted out this sorta brown slimy stuff around his arms and legs. But the knight touched his belt and then wings grew outta his back too. But not bug ones, big metal ones, and they cut through the slime like it was nothin'.

He flew after Paulie again, with his sword up, and I didn't want tuh look but somehow I just had tuh. Paulie shot these lasers out of his eyes and cut off part of the knight's wing, but then the knight flew up higher than him, and then flew back down real fast and stabbed Paulie in the stomach.

This black stuff came out of the stab and went into the knight's belt as they came down. When they landed, Paulie wasn't a moth anymore, but he wasn't movin' anymore either.

The knight's eyes turned back to red as he pulled his sword out, then he pulled a green rectangle out of his belt, and his armored disappeared.

He looked at me for a long, long time before he said anythin', but when he did it was just, "I'm sorry." He got on his motorcycle and zoomed away. I never saw him again. I got some of the grown-ups and we buried Paulie under the bridge. That night, Mr. Drake started screamin' in his sleep…

* * *

Madeleine looked away from Tana when she realized the bill was resting on the edge of their table. Tana leaned back, her face slack from exhaustion and she looked down at her feet, avoiding Madeleine's eyes.

She dug out her wallet and placed a few bills on the table. "Thanks, Tana. Is there anything I can do to help you out, for what you told me?"

"Just find out what happened to Paulie, and maybe that guy won't have to kill anymore people."

Then before Madeleine could do anything to stop her, the little girl got up and ran out of the restaurant. It was fine, she'd done far more than Madeleine felt she had any right to ask. She left the restaurant and walked back to her motel, pondering the actions of "the knight" the whole way.

He always seemed to know where to be, had he really needed Tana to tell him where to find the monster, or had he counted on her to follow him and witness the battle? What reason could he have had for that?

She checked her arrangements for the next meeting, and realized the next city wasn't too far away. Making sure there were no drifters with piercing eyes around, she climbed into her car and sped away.

Soon, come hell or high water, this was all going to pay off.

Soon.


	4. Chapter 4

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters do belong to me, and may not be used without express permission.

She thought she heard the frame of the car groan in protest as it sped on down the darkening highway at top speed. She hadn't been in any particular hurry to get to the next city and collect her next account, but on the way she'd heard a news report on the radio that had changed things considerably.

There had been some gang violence in the city she was heading to, that had culminated in a spectacular battle between two people in colorful armor and a black-furred anthropomorphic horse. The police had tried to keep people away from the scene, but that afternoon while she'd been talking to Tana someone who'd recorded the battle had leaked the footage onto the internet.

And she'd been able to get ahold of a lieutenant on the police force who she'd known back in high school. A little emotional blackmail later she'd convinced him to give her an account of what the police knew.

Suddenly the outlook of this assignment was seeming a lot brighter .

Finally she saw the exit to the street she was looking for and pulled off the highway. The city was the dull amber of street lamps, and Madeleine might even have paused for a moment to appreciate not being out in tiny settlements with populations in four digit figures anymore.

At a red light she rubbed the exhaustion from her eyes, only stopping when the driver behind her honked his horn angrily. After a few minutes of cruising at a pace that felt more like a crawl she finally passed a low building with large black letters reading PRECINCT 16 above the doors.

She pulled into a visitor's lot on the side and didn't bother to lock up as she made her way to the front entrance. The officer at the desk looked up at the disheveled woman staggering into the station, but in front of him was another officer with his arms folded. He looked a little disappointed as he laid eyes on Madeleine, and it took her weary mind a minute to recognize him as Jeremy Taylor. His black hair was a little thinner, while thick glasses she didn't remember were balanced on his nose. For that matter she couldn't see the front of his belt thanks to the gut he'd grown since joining the academy.

"Somehow I never thought I'd see you again, Maddy," he said with a slightly sarcastic grin. Her ears burned in and she readied a high school nickname he hated as much as she hated "Maddy."

"I almost didn't realize that was you, Jere. Been hitting the donuts kind of hard, haven't you?"

He grimaced at both the name and the crack about his weight, but waved her toward a door in the righthand wall, which he made a point of opening and entering first. He led her across a busy work floor where people typed at computers while a few uniformed officers wrestled a handcuffed couple around a corner. Shortly they arrived at a door with a nameplate reading "LT. TAYLOR." He flicked on the lights revealing a small office dominated by a battered aluminum desk with a computer on one side. A shelf on one wall held a couple books that looked like police manuals and a plant Madeleine didn't recognize. That the leaves were browning was pretty hard to miss, though. Jeremy motioned for her to take a seat, which she did on the only chair in front of the desk.

"So, what big-time paper sent you to talk to this hood?" Jeremy asked even before she felt the chair underneath her.

"Actually, this is what I'm counting on to help me move up. Could you do me a huge favor, Jere? I-" "Aren't I already?" he interrupted with a sigh.

"I haven't been able to get on the internet and see this video of the fight. Do you have it?"

"Yeah, I have it. Give me a second."

He tapped a few keys and moved his mouse around, then sighed and twisted the monitor on its base to face Madeleine. He clicked an on-screen button and a video started to play.

It was of a dark street illuminated only by those dull amber lamps that were going that very minute outside. She saw three men talking just outside an alleyway, but owing to the distance from which the film was taken there was no sound. The one closest to the alley was sucking nervously on a cigarette and looking up and down the street every few seconds. Beside him was another wearing a dirty tank top looking on. The third wore a weathered bomber jacket. He was talking slowly as if trying to calm the smoker down and kept trying to pass him something clenched in one fist, but the strung-out-looking smoker kept pushing it away.

Then the strung-out-looking man opened his mouth wide as if screaming. The man in the tank top grabbed him by the arm, and was shoved onto his back for his trouble. The smoker threw his cigarette to the ground and suddenly, horribly his face started to elongate and a long plume of hair sprouted from the back of his head. His ears fell off and pointed replacements emerged from the top of his head. Black hairs started to form on the parts of his body Madeleine could see.

The man with the bomber jacket pulled it open revealing a strange belt with a rectangular hollow in the buckle and a curved prong on either side. He produced a white rectangular object from inside his jacket, and just before he pressed the object into the hollow of his belt buckle Madeleine was surprised to notice she didn't recognize him.

He didn't look like the drifter she'd seen looking at her in the last few stops she'd made on her little tour. His hair looked a bit lighter, probably a pale brown when not under red-tinged light. While the eyes were just as penetrating and the stubble on his cheeks familiar, the face was a little thinner, the chin a lot firmer.

He slapped the object into the space in his belt, and a golden ephemeral shape flew up from it and landed on his forehead. There was a flash, and he was gone. Or more precisely, changed. He had on dull silver boots, gloves, chest armor and a mask over a black body suit. The shape that had flown from the belt was affixed to the front of the mask, framing large red eyes.

He did indeed look like a modern knight, as Tana had described. Meanwhile the smoker had completed his transformation into a black-colored horse standing nearly eight feet tall. It eyes were a searing red and it opened its mouth as if roaring.

The knight jump-kicked before the horse could make the first move, and had barely touched the ground before he was up again and delivering a spinning kick to the horse's head. It shrieked at him and exhaled a cloud of blue gas, or energy, it was hard to say, in the knight's direction. He charged through it and his the horse with his shoulder, knocking it into the side of a building hard enough to crack the brick.

The horse shrieked again, but this time there was a look in its eyes closer to panic than threat. It tried to dart into the alley but stopped short when someone emerged from it. It was another person in knight-like armor, this time a pale red with dazzling green eyes. From their shape and gait Madeleine guessed it was a woman. She held a short lance in her hands and stabbed the horse-creature in the shoulder with it then pulled her weapon back for another strike, bluish blood staining the tip.

The horse crouched then jumped over her head, only for the silver-colored combatant to jump as well and perform a spinning kick that knocked it back into the street.

The view became a blur-whoever had taken this video evidently wasn't a camera operator by profession-and then jerked to a stop where the horse had come to rest. The feminine knight appeared in the frame, her lance held high to deal the finishing blow. Then suddenly it rolled onto its back and breathed out a cloud of that deadly blue substance. It engulfed her and she gripped her face in pain. The horse jumped up and delivered a double kick to her chest armor, shattering it, then kicked upward hard and fast, connecting with her chin. Her head snapped back at an impossible angle and she collapsed.

The horse probably would've done even more if the first knight didn't come rocketing into the shot, landing a powerful kick on the horse's forehead. He landed and cocked a fist, which glowed as he thrust it at the horse's chest. The horse went flying and again the view became a blur. When it cleared the horse-creature lay on the ground, unmoving. Suddenly its body seemed to melt away, becoming a substance like black jelly. Where the horse lay was the man who had transformed into the creature, but with dents in his forehead and chest, and a bleeding puncture in one shoulder.

The black jelly on the ground started to flow back the way the horse-creature had come, and the view blurred once again. The surviving knight stood there clutching his belt buckle, which glowed as it siphoned up the black jelly.

Jeremy clicked his mouse and the playback stopped. "That's enough, you get the point," he said.

"So who was that guy how turned into a horse?"

"Just a drug pusher. One who'd been pounding the competition into bloody smears, that is," he replied.

"What about the knight…I mean, the guy who killed him?"

"No idea. We tracked him down then brought him, but the information on his ID doesn't match up to anything here in the real world. Far as we've been able to guess he's some kind of vigilante. But you say you've been following this story, have the people this guy's been after been involved with the drug industry?"

Drug industry? No, people in the drug industry didn't usually live under bridges. But then, how much had she really been able to turn up about the actual victims? Or the black mess that seemed to be the source of their monstrous powers?

"Not that I know of, Jere, but I have to say you're taking all this really well. Monsters, knights, this kind of stuff just doesn't happen."

"It's happening now, Maddy, and you probably know that better than me. Please, if you can tell me anything that could make this clearer, tell me."

Madeleine sighed. "I've heard a bunch of accounts, but they don't tell me much. There's a guy going around who can turn into some kind of knight, and somehow he knows where to find these monsters, which apparently look and act like regular people most of the time. As for who he is and where they come from, I haven't heard much. He's probably using a bunch of assumed identities, but that's about all I know."

"Figures," Jeremy said, and looked away. "Well, we'll find out what this guy's up too soon. Even he has to break down sometime."

"Could I talk to him?" Madeleine asked. "Where is he?"

"I don't know," Jeremy replied. "And not until we're through with him." "You mean until the feds get here and get through with him."

"Don't give me this, okay Maddy? At least I'm giving you a chance. If the feds do show up do you think they'll let you within a hundred feet of him? They'll shut all this up faster than a gnat's butt. Whoever put the video on net's probably already been shipped to Alaska."

"Come on, Jere. You said you'd help me out, but all you did was show me a video anybody could see on the internet. It's sounding like you just brought me over to see if I knew anything."

"Look, I've got your number. If they get through with this guy and are willing to let the press talk to him, I'll give you a call. Okay?" Jeremy said, almost apologetically.

So much for my big break, Madeleine sighed inwardly. "Sure whatever." Grinding her teeth she turned and walked out of the station, vaguely aware of Jeremy escorting her from behind. Once the door to the vestibule closed he was gone, and in another moment she was back out on the street.

So Jeremy had only agreed to talk to her hoping he'd learn something from _her_. It figured. She thought about finding a place to wash some clothes, never a fun job in an unfamiliar city, or at least a motel for the night. As waves of passerby flowed around her, her thoughts were interrupted by the feeling of eyes on her. She looked up, and there was the drifter she'd seen watching her in her last few stops.

He was definitely different than the one she'd seen in that video. He was thinner, almost like a scarecrow, and he'd been wearing a hat when she'd seen him before, so she was surprised to see his dark hair in a crew cut. His eyes seemed to glow faintly, and as Madeleine made contact with them she felt as if he was gazing into her heart. She felt as if all her darkest secrets were flowing out her eyes into his.

Then he started walking toward her.

Madeleine felt her stomach quiver and considered running, but with so many people around wasn't sure there was any point. Then all of a sudden he was right in front of her.

"Are you the one who's been following Altis?" he whispered.

Madeleine gathered herself up, trying as tough and in control as she possibly could. "Maybe," she replied in a quivering whisper.

"Don't play games with me," he said, putting an arm gently around her shoulders and leading her up the street. "I don't think he'll crack, but I can't take the chance that he might."

"Who are you?" Madeleine said quietly, more from the cold fear gripping her than a desire to avoid being overheard.

"Not here," was all he said. He steered her up the street and around several corners until they were in front of a small but well-maintained hotel building. It was only three stories tall but it looked like a palace compared to the places Madeleine had been staying on her little odyssey. The kind of place where they actually pu clean sheets down after the guest left.

He led her into the lobby and they took the stairs up to the next floor. They passed two doors and he opened another door into a perfectly ordinary hotel room.

"Sorry we didn't take the elevator, but I didn't want you to worry I was going to pull a knife on you or something where nobody could stop me," he said with a slight smirk. "This must all be pretty strange."

"Not at all. It's nice to finally see something concrete," Madeleine countered, her anxiety starting to fade.

"You're awfully accepting of the strange and unusual, Madeleine. That's why I think you might be able to help me," the main said as he took a seat facing her.

"What do you mean?"

"I…represent a group concerned with eliminating these monsters that suddenly seem to be popping up everywhere. Altis is much more use to us on the road hunting them down than in a cinderblock room having questions hurled at him. Unfortunately, currently I'm its only member in the vicinity, and I can't risk exposing myself to capture. I could get out, but it would be…an inconvenience."

"Altis? So that's his name? And…wait, what are you getting at?"

"I'm asking if you'd be willing to locate Altis and secure his freedom. I can provide you with everything you need."

Madeleine ran a hand through her tangled hair. "I don't know…"

"I thought you were trying to break the story of the century, Miss Moore. This is your chance to meet the man at the heart of it all, and you're hesitating?

Madeleine looked at him incredulously. "Are you with the government or something? Can't you just walk in there, flash your badge at whoever stops you and get him out yourself?"

"I could, I suppose, but I'm far more interested in seeing what you do with this opportunity. Consider this your initiation, if you want. All your questions will be answered if you do well on this task, and I'm sure you have a lot," he said, then smiled as if he was sure what he'd just said would seal the deal.

Heaving a weary sigh, Madeleine leaned back in her chair to think.


	5. Chapter 5

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters do belong to me, and may not be used without express permission.

I want to record what happened on that night while the memories are as fresh as possible. That was when I stopped chasing my story…and became a part of it.

A strange man had led me back to his hotel room, and I'd let him because he seemed to know the truth about another man, the one I'd been tracking down. The one who had the power to transform into some kind of knight, and used that power to kill people. People who could transform as well...He'd asked for my help in saving the other man, promising to answer all my questions if I did.

"Well? Can I count on you to follow this through to the end, Miss Moore?" he asked, and I detected impatience creeping in.

"What do you need me to do?"

He smiled a little, taking that as my agreement I guess. "For starters, get yourself cleaned up. You'll get your instructions then." He pointed his thumb toward the bathroom, and with a little hesitation I went in.

I locked the door, but I doubted I could actually keep him out if he didn't feel like respecting my privacy. I got the shower running and got in, and I don't mind saying I felt kind of like being born again with all the grunge I hadn't taken the time to clean off washing down the drain.

I got out and put on a towel, and peeked out of the bathroom to see the man wasn't there. Laid out on the bed was a police uniform with a ring of keys and a note folded on top. I went over and unfolded it, a little afraid of what it might say.

_Miss Moore,_

_This should fit you. I hope you won't be offended just how closely we've been watching you to know._

_On the other side of this note is a map of a police precinct and directions on how to reach it from here. Altis's cell and the impound lot are indicated, but before anything else I need you to find the room circled in red, and within it a tube of a black substance. If necessary Altis can free himself, but the contents of that tube must be delivered to us before anyone attempts to open it or examine what it contains. Do not under any circumstances attempt to open it yourself._

_Your cover identity is Lt. Stephanie Rhimer. You've just moved to the city from Phoenix as you thought things were too dull back in your hometown. No one should prevent you from going anywhere you need. I will be waiting at the southern exit for you to make the delivery before freeing Altis. Be sure to bring him his belt and crystal shards, and after that he can see himself out. This uniform contains everything you'll need._

_Good luck,_

_Your caring patron_

Typical, I thought, making me jump through a bunch of hoops to get my answers. Still, I was used to working myself to the bone to get what I needed. This would just be a little more exciting than usual. If I didn't end up doing time in a cell next to Altis.

I put on the uniform he'd left and was surprised at how well it fit. All the badges and everything were pinned on so I didn't haven to figure anything out and risk blowing my cover, but I did wonder for a second how long they might have been planning this. Or on the other hand, how quickly they'd been able to put it together when they decided to ask for my help.

I read the directions and got back into my car to drive to the next precinct, the one where Altis was being held. I don't mind saying I was a little afraid of what I was getting myself into, not excited like I'd thought. Lying to the police is a risky thing to do, and I was doing it to break out a fugitive. One who probably had a good couple murder raps. Then again, he wouldn't do anything to me, would he? I mean, I wasn't a monster…

I found the place, Precinct 14, and drove around a little until I found an all-night parking garage. I parked there and then walked back to the precinct, trying to look tough and in charge. A pair of mean-looking teenage boys who seemed too young for the cigarettes dangling off their lips looked at me and put out their smokes before getting out of there. I hoped that meant it was working.

But just as I saw the building I was looking for come back into sight, I almost dropped my act and walked away. On the other side of the street I saw someone I realized I recognized. It was the hitchhiker I'd seen in that truck that gunned past me on the highway a little while back. The one with the fiery eyes. Now they were more fiery than ever, and I swear they were pointed at me. He had to be part of this, whatever it was, and I had a feeling he wasn't as friendly as the guy who'd given me this assignment.

The sooner I got this done, I told myself, the sooner I could tell my "patron" about the guy and find out exactly what I'd gotten myself into.

I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer anymore.

The doors opened easily enough, and the officer behind the desk looked up at me as I walked in. It looked for a second like he was about to reach under his desk for something, but I held up the name badge I'd been given.

"Oh, Rhimer. I…we, didn't expect you until tomorrow."

"It's okay, I was feeling kind of restless and decided to have a look around the place tonight," I said, trying to sound assured again, but it wasn't easy after what I'd just seen.

"Fair enough," he said, but he said it slowly like he still thought it was weird. I didn't care. The act was working so far, and I couldn't really back out now.

I opened the door onto the main floor and tried to remember where the circled room had been. I tried to look casual as I sauntered over in its direction. A few people looked up or over at me as I passed them, but none of them tried to stop me. Once I was outside the room, I finally realized what it was.

Evidence storage.

Somehow, I'd managed not to think about what getting the tube was or what I'd have to do to get my hands on it. Like, be evidence in a crime and steal it from police custody.

I patted down my uniform, trying to find any hidden spy gadgets or anything my "patron" might have left for me, and feeling like a complete amateur for not thinking of that before I'd left. Underneath the badge I felt something dangling, and palmed a small object about the size of a gel cap. It was a green pill with the word "SLEEP" written on two sides in little yellow letters.

The door to the evidence room opened and inside were racks of confiscated weapons, bags of drugs, bloodstained clothes and other things I couldn't even recognize through the mesh walls. At a little window was seated a pudgy little woman with white hair. "Hello? Can I help you?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm here to go over some of the evidence in the…uh, Altis case."

"Altis case?" she asked, and my stomach tightened. I threw the capsule on the ground and held my breath. She gasped in surprised, and that meant she sucked in a mouthful of a light green smoke that was rising up from where the capsule landed. She choked for a second and fell over. I looked through the keys and found one marked EVIDENCE which opened the gate in the mesh wall. I went over to the old woman and checked her pulse, but it was as steady as mine.

The smoke had cleared almost as fast as she'd sucked it in, so I didn't have to worry about it myself, but who knew when somebody else might come in? I went along the racks of stuff as fast as I could while still being thorough, looking for a tube of black stuff and the belt I'd seen Altis wearing in Jeremy's video. Any second I expected someone to show up and introduce my head to a truncheon, but no one came.

I spotted a transparent tube, maybe an inch across and eight tall. It was about 4/5 full of some kind of black jelly that looked sort of like it was churning around inside by itself. I just grabbed the thing and tried not to think about the fact that it was probably alive. Hanging on a hook next to it was that weird belt with a pouch hanging off one side with four rectangular slots. Just to make sure, I popped the clasp on each one. Inside each was a small rectangular…object made out of some kind of jewel-like material, white, blue, green and red. They glowed a little, and weird shapes engraved on the front. The shape on the white one looked sort of like a stubby little "H," the red one had a shape like a big curving "U," the shape on the green one looked kind of like a "V," and I couldn't think of anything to describe the shape on the blue one. Not right then, anyway.

Then there was a sound like something smashing through a wall and I had to hold onto the tube with both hands to make sure I didn't drop it. I heard cops running past the door and yelling things I couldn't understand. I got to the door and peeked out to see them trying to barricade the front entrance against something. I didn't stick around to get a good look, but I was sure I could see paws as big as your head and burning eyes like that hitchhiker from outside.

I remembered the way the cells were and ran down the hall in that direction before any of the cops could stop me. I'm not sure they would have bothered even if they had noticed me.

Now, you're probably wondering why I was so scared and forgetting my orders at a time like that. After all, I'd been chasing the story of those monsters all over the state, I should've been able to keep it together when I actually met one, right? Let me know how well it goes the first time you run into a monster that can rip you in half and has the inclination to do so.

There was nobody going the other way as I ran into a hallway and unlocked the doors of a checkpoint with one of those keys I'd been given. On the other side was a room with a couple cells on either side. Most were empty, but on the right was one holding a with three-day stubble. I didn't have to tilt my head and squint to know it was the guy from the video, though. He had those some eyes as the hitchhiker outside and my "patron," but I didn't just feel like he could hear all my secrets. I felt cold, and like I could hear a bit of what he was thinking to do with that information. Like how to call my editor and exactly what to say to get this story shut down.

"Does everyone have eyes like that?" I blurted out.

He got up and approached the bars. "Pretty much. Give me the belt." He said in a calm but commanding voice, kind of like he didn't want to scare me but was in no mood to waste time.

"Will you tell me what's going on if I do?" I asked and took a defensive step back, clutching the belt and the tube close.

I swear his eyes whirred as he sized me up. "A Taint's right outside," he said.

"A what?"

"A Taint," he repeated with way too much patience. "Give me the belt and I'll get you out of here safely." I hesitated, and he added, "It wants what's in that cylinder. If you try to get away it'll come right for you."

"You put all his buddies in there, right?" I said, but I was walking over to the cell and passing him the belt and tube through the bars. He strapped on his belt, and I heard screams and snarling coming from down the hall. I fumbled with the keys until I found one with the number 3, the numeral painted above his cell. I was surprised to see him watching and waiting for me to open the door for him. I half-expected him to pull it out of the wall his bare hands.

"Which way is the impound lot?" he asked as he grabbed my arm.

"Uh, that way!" I pointed. I heard something smashing through the station, getting closer. "But I don't know where the closest exit is…There wouldn't be one close to the cells."

Then I swear I heard one of those Wilhelm screams and a cop with blood drenching the front of her uniform landed next to me. Standing in the entrance to the cellblock was some kind of man-sized rodent with blood splattered on its claws and face. It had a long, kind of worm-like tail, and I guessed it was probably a rat monster. Taint. Still getting used to that term.

It ran at Altis. He moved away from me and the rat Taint changed the course of its run so it would still collide with him. Just as it was about to sink its teeth into his side he grabbed it by the waist and heaved it through a wall.

Standing outside was the hitchhiker from before. He saw Altis and glared at him.

"Give me the life!" he yelled.

Altis didn't answer. The hitchhiker scowled and his skin tore as his jaws started to extend outward from his face. "Give me the life!"

"You'll be joining it in a second," Altis replied in a completely neutral tone.

"Give me the life!" the hitchhiker screamed, and then his skin tore off completely, revealing a leathery and a long tail as thick as a lamppost. His jaws got even longer and his teeth were as big as knives. He looked like a giant alligator.

Altis held out the tube to me. "Hold onto this for me," he said and pushed the sloshing black tube into my arms without waiting for me to take it.

"What if they get past you?" I asked, pressing myself against the outside wall of the precinct. I knew I should've gone back inside, but I had to see what happened next. I wasn't thinking about delivering the tube anymore. At the time I wasn't sure I'd ever be thinking about anything again.

"They won't," was all he said. Then he took the white crystal thing out of its pouch and pushed it into the slot in the middle of his belt buckle. "Transform."

(Author's note: I'm sorry to interrupt the flow of the story, but imagining "Ride the Wind" playing in the background wouldn't be at all inappropriate)

A voice came out of the belt. It said "Wanderer," and a gold replica of the symbol on the front of the crystal appeared and attached to his forehead, then a black suit covered his body from head to toe. Then silver armor with touches of blue and gold appeared over the black suit, covering his chest, feet, hands and head. His helmet covered his entire head, and the gold shape became these sort of horns that framed big red eyes.

I realized that despite working myself to the bone for the past week, I was wide awake all of a sudden. I could feel waves of power rolling off him, but just as soon as I'd noticed them, they stopped.

His eyes fixed on the monsters, and turned blazing yellow.

I had a feeling that meant they were in trouble.

The alligator monster…Taint! The alligator Taint jumped straight at us, I think it was going for me, but Altis grabbed it and body-slammed it on the ground. The rat jumped at him next, but he met it in mid-air with a jump kick. It spun over and over through the air, but landed on its feet on the side of the building next to the precinct. It jumped at Altis again but as he got ready to throw a punch something knocked him off his feet.

It was the other Taint, swinging its tail along the ground to bowl Altis over. Before he could get back up its tail smashed into his middle and Altis contorted in pain. The rat landed on Altis next and raked its fingers over his chest and bit into his neck. Altis punched it hard in the chest and it went flying away from him. The alligator Taint advanced on him, snapping its jaws menacingly but Altis pulled the red crystal out of his belt and swapped it for the white one.

"Breaker," that same weird voice announced and the U-shape, large and golden, rose from his belt and attached to his forehead. His body shimmered and when it stopped after a second he had thick red armor on top of the suit he already wore and a heavy hammer clutched in both hands. The alligator Taint lunged for him but Altis juked out of the way and hit on the back of its head with his hammer. Hard. It staggered under the attack but turned around and came at him again, this time aiming its giant mouth at his arms.

Altis ducked as the monster's…Taint's mouth snapped shut with enough force to shatter the windows in the next building over. He hit it with his hammer in the small of the back this time and it squealed, black stuff covering the head of the hammer. Altis didn't let up, hitting it again and then again in the same place. The alligator swung its tail at Altis but he brought his hammer up again and hit the tail, cutting right through it. Altis swung his hammer like a baseball bat and it connected with the alligator Taint's middle and lifted it off the ground. It must've gone ten feet off the ground, and it landed hard enough to knock me down and dent the asphalt. It didn't get back up.

The rat suddenly reared up behind Altis and bit into his shoulder, but he barely seemed to notice. Altis punched it hard between the eyes and it backed off, and again he grabbed a new crystal and put it into his belt.

"Tidal," it said this time. Another golden shape, this reminded me of a butterfly with a horn now that I got to look a little closer, floated up and attached to his mask. The red armor that had appeared over his regular suit was gone now, with a blue chest plate and sort of…fins, I guess on his gloves and boots. Even the "horn" on the butterfly shape looked like fin now that I saw it in three dimensions. The hammer was gone too, and instead he had a long harpoon.

The rat skittered back and forth, but every time it looked like it was about to spring Altis swung the harpoon it just barely moved back in time to dodge. On the third swing he actually connected, and the rat squealed in pain. It jumped over his head and clung to the wall of the precinct, then jumped to the other building. Altis took aim with his harpoon but then the rat jumped back to the side of the precinct.

It kept this up, jumping back and forth whenever Altis had a bead on it. Finally it jumped to the side of the police station and dropped toward Altis before he could turn to face it. All of a sudden he whipped around and stabbed his harpoon upwards through the rat's body. It twitched and foamed at the mouth for a second, then went limp.

Altis scraped it off on the ground, and then said something I'll never forget.

"Death is the greatest mercy."

He turned to me, and I didn't even register how he was holding his hand out until he said something else. "Give me back the cylinder."

I did, feeling numb and, well, not sure what to feel. He slide the tube under his chest plate then turned to face the alligator Taint. He touched his belt buckle, then whispered, "Oceanic Restoration." Its body turned to black mush and then formed into a stream that flowed into his belt. When the black stuff was gone, the body of that hitchhiker lay there with some pronounced dents where Altis had got him with that hammer.

He turned to the rat Taint then, and touched his belt buckle like before. All of a sudden, though, it turned into black mush and started to flow away from him.

"What in the hell-" Altis gasped, and I gasped too when I saw what was going on.

Standing on the edge of the parking lot, wearing a weird belt of his own that was sucking the blackness into its belt, was my "patron."

"Thank you ever so much, Miss Moore. This has been a better night than I dared hope."


	6. Chapter 6

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission.

(Author's note: I'll be getting artwork up for Altis on my blog, Spectrum of Madness, soon. Come check it out)

I shut my eyes harder than I thought was possible, waited a second and then opened them again. When Altis has changed I'd been wide awake with all the power I'd felt coming off him, but already the buzz was starting to fade. Still, there was no doubt in my mind the guy standing under that flickering street light, sucking a ribbon of black slime into his belt, was the one who'd given me the job of breaking Altis out of jail.

Just as the last of the slime was disappearing into his belt, Altis threw himself at my "patron" fist-first, but right before he knocked the guy's head off he ducked and rolled out of his way.

"What's going on?" I screeched. "I thought you guys were on the same side!"

He was grinning at me, but I had feeling Altis wasn't. "Madeleine, the deal was you'd bring me the tube before springing him. You didn't live up to your end so I've got no reason to live up to mine. And good luck getting anything out of him."

A few blocks away I could hear the wail of police sirens, and he just grinned even wider. " 'Fraid you're on your own this time, old friend." So saying he actually jumped onto the roof of the police station and was out of sight. Altis surprised me by just clenching his fists and growling angrily.

He turned and ran to the gate blocking off the station's impound lot, and knocked it down with one punch. Out in front were a pair of motorcycles with colorful armor plating, and with his harpoon he punctured the gas tank of one of them.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"What does it look like? Keeping my secrets safe." The gas pooled on the ground as he dragged his knuckles across the side. A spark jumped into the fountain of gas and the motorcycle exploded. I could feel the heat from thirty feet away, but Altis stood there in the middle of the burning wreckage like he didn't even notice it.

"Get on," he said and motioned toward the other motorcycle. I nodded and climbed onto the back. I didn't have the energy to come up with a convincing explanation for why I was the only cop who'd survived the massacre.

He pulled into the street and we were zooming down the street just as I could see red and blue lights coming at us the other way. "Where can I drop you off?" he said over his shoulder.

"I parked at a garage about three blocks over that way, but I'm not going to get my car looking like this."

"Fair enough. So where?"

I told him how to get to my motel and he pulled his armored bike up in the street behind it. As I got off he pulled the crystal out of his belt and his armor flickered away.

I was walking around the corner to the front when I realized he'd said something to me.

"What?"

"Thank you," he repeated.

"I don't suppose you'd be open to an interview?"

"No."

"Can you at least tell me where you're going next?" I asked desperately. Some reporter I was. I didn't have a thing to show for meeting the person at the heart of my story.

"The morgue, if you must know. I'd like to let some people say goodbye to a friend."

"That's not really what I meant," I tried to protest, but the energy just wasn't there.

"I'm afraid that's all you'll get." He turned his motorcycle around and motored around the edge of the motel, and just like that he was gone.

I staggered into my room and slammed the door, thanking whatever powers that be for giving me the foresight to put my personal things into the uniform I'd been given. I'd have to find a place to burn it as soon as I could, but for the moment I slumped into the bed with everything still on, too tired to worry about being found by the wrong people.

I thought I heard somebody yelling at me from the other side of a football field, then it sounded like someone was honking a bike horn at me from even farther away. It got a little louder and I realized it was the ringtone on my cell phone, and then the sound signaling the battery was low. And they were both coming from under my butt.

I squirmed around, not feeling up to opening my eyes yet, and flipped it open. "Hello?" I groaned.

"Madeleine? You sound terrible." It was Alex, my editor. There was this smugness in his voice like he had bad news he couldn't wait to tell me.

"What's up, Alex? Moving up my deadline again?"

"No, but I bet you're in Packard following up on that video, right? Last night a monster attacked a police station and killed thirteen cops."

"Two monsters."

That sounded like it'd taken him by surprise. "What?"

"Two monsters. A rat one and an alligator one."

"Well…never mind then."

I allowed myself a little smile at being one step ahead of him after all. "Anything else you wanted, Alex?"

He hmphed at having his superior mood thrown off. "Did you find out anything about that knight guy you've been tracking down?"

"They told me he was at the station that got attacked, but either he got away or the monsters killed him before I could talk to him." No need to give him a reason to move up my deadline after all.

"Hrm…stay in touch with that cop buddy of yours. That deadline's not getting any farther away." Then without any warning, he hung up. Had to reassert his authority somehow, I guess.

The phone beeped at me to feed it, and realizing I probably wasn't getting to back to sleep I managed to get up and found the charger. As I plugged it in I noticed the date, and almost dropped it.

When Altis had left my company it had been about one in the morning. I'd been asleep for the entire following day and gotten the call from Alex about eight-thirty the next morning.

I put on some dirty clothes and stuff the police uniform in the bottom of my suitcase. I didn't have a lighter and this place was a little too cheap to leave complimentary matches for guests. Honestly, one spark out of place and it'd probably would've burned to the ground.

I had no idea what to do next. Both of the leads I could've had were gone without telling me a thing. The next person I'd been planning to talk to lived in a city that was a day's drive away, and after seeing one of those fights for myself listening to someone tell me their story of one seemed kind of pointless.

I just lay on my back, looking out the window every once in a while to see if my "patron" was there, but he wasn't. I guess whatever group he belonged to didn't believe in second chances. Or killing witnesses.

I thought about calling Jeremy to see if he'd be willing to go for a few drinks, maybe tell me how things had changed while I was gone. I sighed when it occurred to me he'd probably be busy doing something or other with a monster just having destroyed one of the precincts. And somebody would probably think to mention Officer Rhimer.

Oh god, what had I gotten myself into? I impersonated a police officer, sprung a wanted criminal on the word of some weirdo and then a pair of monsters murdered thirteen cops in the station where I'd done it all. I was so dead. Even if Altis was grateful, the cops were after me, and I couldn't rule out that the guy who gave me the mission wouldn't try to shut me up.

I walked out of my motel room, expecting a bullet to go through my head at any second. If I was going to be killed or caught and spend the rest of my life in prison for the massively stupid thing I'd done in my last waking period, I didn't see the sense in waiting for it.

I hadn't gone two steps before I bumped into someone in a long dark coat.

"Oh god no…"

"Miss Moore, I'm surprised at you," he chuckled. "What happened to your passion from the other night?"

Sure enough, it was my patron, looking calm, even amused. His hair, his face, his clothes, everything about him was immaculate. His hands were thrust into his pockets, and I expected him to pull out a weapon and casually shut my mouth forever.

"You're afraid I'm here to kill you, I bet."

"If not, why are you here? You said you didn't owe me any answers."

"I don't, but that doesn't mean you didn't still do me a favor. Shall we go somewhere private and I'll tell you what I mean?"

"Forget it. I'm not going anywhere private with you," I countered, feeling proud of my defiance considering what this guy was involved in.

He smirked a little. "Fair enough. Let's walk and talk, then. And don't get any ideas about denying me that."

"Sure…" I said hesitantly. We started walking past the motel's parking lot and onto the sidewalk. He was a little in front of me, and I hoped it was a gesture of good faith that he wasn't trying to get out of my line of sight so he could pull a knife or something. Even in broad daylight I didn't trust these people not to kill me.

"As I was trying to say before you got all suspicious, Miss Moore, you're safe. At least, you're safe from the human race, for what happened the other night."

"What are you talking about?"

"Repaying a favor, of course. Honestly, I never really expected you to deliver the tube before you went to him. It would've been a big help to me, but I didn't expect it."

"I didn't really have a choice," I answered.

"No, that wouldn't surprise me, and he is worth much more alive and out there…In any case, I greased a few palms for you. Bought a few tapes, convinced a few parties there were things they didn't remember what with the terror of…well, you know."

I sighed. "Isn't there anything I can do to get you to tell me what's happening? I mean, he attacked you. This isn't just some good guys vs. bad guys thing going on here."

"No indeed it isn't. I just want you to know that even though I don't think you're…well, ready to learn more, I'm not the bad guy. Perhaps you'll get another-" he stopped in mid-sentence. His eyes whirred, I was sure of it that time.

I tensed. "What's going on?"

"A Taint," he whispered into my ear.

"Another one?"

"Sometimes there's only one, sometimes it's like ant's nest."

I breathed in slowly to keep calm. "I heard about one like that…"

He took me by the arm and started leading me along.

"Are you going to fight it, or just get me out of the way?" I asked.

"Of course I'll fight it. Don't tell me you didn't notice the belt before," he responded.

Thoughts of my job popped into my head. "Look, I did help you out before. Do you think you could…I don't know, let me record this or something?"

He looked down at me, bemused I thought, then laughed. "If you start and stop when I tell you, and I'll know if you don't."

He kept pulling me along, but in a different direction this time. We ended up in a narrow, empty street that ran through a block of low buildings. I felt him push a palm-sized video camera into my hand. Over one shoulder I saw a woman step into view behind us. She had short brown hair and plain but sturdy clothes, but had those same fiery eyes as the hitchhiker who turned into an alligator before.

"Look at her eyes, Miss Moore. I think we've upset her. "

"Is that what that means?" I shivered a little as she clenched her teeth, but after having a good night's sleep I was feeling a bit more composed despite knowing what was about to happen.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of crystal. It was this kind of bluish purple, and I'm sure I saw one of those weird shapes on this one too. The woman glared right at me, then started to change.

This one was even worse than the alligator. Her cheeks split as mandibles pushed out from her mouth. Her fingers fell off and long blade-like appendages slowly formed where they'd been. Her hair fell out and her skin turned green. And hard. Somehow those glowing red eyes of hers hardened too, into big compound eyes. She looked like a praying mantis. And she was looking at me.

I looked over at him, and he was still just standing there, holding that crystal in his hand.

"Now," he said, and pushed the crystal into a little drawer sticking up from the top of his belt buckle. As soon as it slid in he slapped the drawer down into his belt.

"Outlaw," it announced.

"Transform!" he yelled.

I hit the record button and aimed it at him as a gold shape-I didn't even have time to think about what it looked like-floated up and landed on his face. Like with Altis, a black suit appeared over his body and then purplish armor with dull brown ornaments the color of the shape on his mask appeared over that. Unlike Altis his armor covered his chest and head mostly, looking like it was meant to protect him but not slow him down.

Then the mantis-lady spread some sharp-looking wings on her back and flew at me, but he side-checked her into a wall. She slashed at him and got him a few times but he it took on his chest armor and kicked her, his leg slicing into one wing.

As I recorded the fight, I dimly remember asking myself if the Taint had been following him…or me.


	7. Chapter 7

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission.

Note: At long last, here's the seventh chapter of Kamen Rider Altis. This story's an experiment for me, so all reviews will be highly appreciated. Thanks!

The mantis Taint made this angry chittering noise as his kick sliced into its wing, but I had the feeling it was more mad than hurt. It swiped at his head with an arm but he was fast. Faster than I'd even seen Altis move. He seemed to become a blur as he ducked underneath it and hit the Taint in the midriff with a one-two punch that knocked it away from him. It jumped off a wall and came sailing back, then sliced into his chest plate with its bladed arms.

I probably should've been afraid Mantis Taint could've decided to attack the unarmored woman standing there holding the camera, and that if it did he wouldn't be able to stop it in time. Maybe I was sure of what those guys could do after seeing Altis take care of two monsters…Taint all by himself. I don't really know. I was just holding onto that camera with the steadiest grip I'd ever managed in my life, like that was the only thing keeping the monster…Taint! From chopping my head off.

The monster's arms glowed for a second then it shot these kind of boomerang-shaped…light-things at us. My patron jumped over one and then smashed it somehow with a karate chop on his way down. Before he even touched the ground he brought back his leg and smashed the other one with a kick. The monster…Mantis Taint, okay, I'm trying, see? Mantis Taint jumped at him and tried to stab him in the chest with its pointed arms, but he grabbed it by the wrists. I guess. Look, I'm not a bug person, okay?

He kicked it in the waist, right where the segments of its body met. It shrieked and went for his neck with its mouth but he kicked it again in the waist. It jerked and shrieked louder this time. He shoved its arms away from him and jumped high, and came down in an arc.

"Versa Kick!" he said, with a "sh" sound, and aimed one foot at Mantis Taint's waist. A burst of light erupted from his foot as he came down and then sliced right through Mantis Taint. Its top half went spinning, and it was already turning black and goopy when I shut my eyes.

I was getting used to it. That doesn't mean I needed to see the results of his little stunt.

"And…stop," I heard him say. I pressed the stop button with my thumb.

"You can look now," he said, and I just knew he was holding a laugh. I did, and all I could see of the body was a foot peeking out from behind a couple garbage cans he set up. I started to unload the camera but he held up a hand. "Keep it. I've got a million back home."

"Are you sure all you're willing to give me's the footage?" I asked. It was pathetic. I already knew the answer, but I wouldn't be much of a reporter if I gave up when I had him right there, would I?

He shook his head as I heard police sirens getting louder. "How about I save you from the police again instead?" We went back to the motorcycle and roared away. After a few minutes we were outside my motel again.

"Go get the uniform and we'll have us a little bonfire," he told me.

"Look, what can I call you? If I'm going to share this footage I need to be able to say who was fighting, right?"

"We will be working together again, I'm sure…but you also heard me use my professional name back there."

I rolled my eyes. "Professional name? Cute."

He smirked. "Somebody involved in this has to have a sense of humor."

I ran inside and after putting the camera at the bottom of a drawer I yanked the police uniform from the back of my suitcase, spilling the rest of my clothes all over the floor in the process. I could worry about that later, and balled up the uniform as best I could so nobody would recognize it for what it was. I didn't feel like finding out what Versa would want in exchange if he had to save me from the police again.

As soon as I got back out Versa motioned for me to get on the bike, and I'd barely sat down before he pulled away from the curb. I lurched in the seat and glared at his back. I had this feeling he noticed even though he didn't look back at me.

We stopped a little past this old bridge near the edge of town. He lowered the kickstand and started walking down the slope without waiting for me. I almost fell as I tried to follow and sent gravel and dust flying everywhere even though I didn't. I swear Versa didn't disturb a pebble on his way down. I know he was a superhero and everything, but I couldn't help feeling kind of annoyed at how I didn't compare.

"Toss it on the ground there," he pointed with one hand and pulled a gizmo that looked like a campfire lighter. I threw the uniform down and he pressed a button on the gadget, and it shot this little fireball that touched the ball of clothes and immediately it was burning. Again he didn't wait and immediately started walking back up to the bike. I scrambled after him and did fall down that time, scraping my hands pretty good.

"Thanks," I said, not sure what else to say. At the time I remember figuring all those big time reporters covering terror attacks or wars on foreign soil would've kept their cool even after everything I'd seen and been hounding Altis and Versa with all kinds of questions about who they really were, where the Taint came from, how their powers worked, exactly what martial arts they practiced, and on and on and on.

The questions wouldn't come as I looked up at Versa. I was still processing the fact that I had seen two actual superheroes fight actual monsters with my own eyes, and what I would do with the footage when I had a minute to sit down and think. I felt like a complete amateur.

"I suppose I'd better get you back, Miss Moore. Got an article to research, after all."

"I'm not sure there's a point anymore," I let slip.

He didn't respond, and not another word passed between us even when he dropped me off in front of the motel then rode away. As he did it occurred to me he wasn't riding one of those motorcycles like Altis and, I assumed, his friend rode. That had armor and stuff that made it look like it was made for the military. The military in _Star Wars_ or something.

They obviously knew each other, and they had powers that were so alike. And yet they were enemies. Or at least rivals. And the one Horse Taint had killed, and how Altis had mentioned he had friends who wanted to pay their respects, that meant there were probably even more of them…what were they? And why did they involve me? I couldn't be the only person trying to get the bottom of their little mystery. Certainly I couldn't be the most qualified to participate in it.

I shook my head and went back into my room, hauled out my laptop and plugged it in. While I was waiting for it to start up, I unplugged the phone and dialed Alex. After a minute picked up.

"Make this fast, my desk is buried," he said, snide as always.

"It's Madeleine. I'm going to make the article a little more of a…personal account," I said.

"What?"

"Oh…I think instead of just writing the stories I've heard I'll focus on the things I've seen instead. Don't worry, I'll include those too. I wouldn't want you to think all those gas receipts I'll be turning in were for nothing."

"Maddy," Alex sputtered, "If I wanted an article like that I would've assigned Patrick or Christy-"

"Trust me, you'll see I'm up for this when you see what I'm sending with it. If you don't like it I'll write you one like we talked about before."

"Maddy, what's gotten into you?"

"Sorry Alex, I'm feeling the creative juices coming. Talk to you after I get this done."

I waited for a second, and heard a click then dial tone. I'm not trying to make the people I'm talking about look bad, but I had never heard or been part of a conversation where Alex hadn't gotten the last word. He's not a bad guy, really. He cares about turning out a good paper on time. But the people who work under him never forget he's in charge. I thought I might've done something he hadn't even remembered was possible by saying I was going to write a story my own way.

Shafts of white light stabbing into the dark motel room from the screen of my computer forced me to remember I had to actually think about what should go into that article I'd made up my mind not to research anymore. I sat down in front of it, opened my word processor and spent what must've been about ten minutes just looking at the blinking cursor on the top line.

What could I say in this piece if I wasn't prepared to tell Alex everything about meeting Altis and Versa? Why was I keeping that to myself anyway? Didn't I have the nerve to call myself a reporter? Shouldn't I be…reporting?

I put my fingers over the keys and started to type, hoping what I felt like saying didn't sound too unprofessional.

"Monsters. Mutants. Freaks. No doubt words like these have crept into a lot of conversations lately. Whispers that maybe, possibly, hopefully not, monsters are hiding in our cities, hunting us down.

"A lot of things are said regarding them. That they're wild animals out to kill anything in their path. That they look like normal people until they decide to attack. Some have even said they're part of some kind of terrorist plot, or a conspiracy to make the good people think it's a new terrorist plot"

Yes, I talked to a few people with news clippings covering every wall in their living space. Maybe someday I'll share what they told me.

"How much of this is true? How much is there still to discover? Authorities don't seem to know much, and what they do know, they're reluctant to pass on.

"But what about the other strange beings prowling our streets, seemingly hunting down these 'monsters'? These other hunters, clad in armor and riding motorcycles like something out of a science fiction movie. What is their story? Where do their powers come from?" I almost wrote, "why was one arrested for dealing with one of these monsters," but didn't feel like giving Jeremy any trouble.

"What do they know about these monsters, and if they're so interested in protecting us, why do they operate in such secrecy?"

I stopped for a second, wondering if it was such a good idea to accuse the people who'd saved my life and saved me from spending the next ten years in jail of not being square with me. Then again, why had Versa come to me for help if he hadn't known why I was interested in them? Altis I wasn't so sure about, but…he couldn't fault me for doing my job, could he?

I wrote on a while longer, relating some of the stories I'd been told. The ones I considered most credible, given the things I'd seen for myself. The tale of Carl Jacobi and the wolf, even Kev and Tana's stories. And a little something about how a certain intrepid reporter had managed to record such a battle in progress despite the danger.

As I sat and stared at the article I'd just typed, I got to thinking about the two warriors I'd met. Versa was tight-lipped, but yet he was strangely cooperative too. Would he have actually told me what was going on if I'd given that black stuff to him? I had a feeling in my gut that the answer was yes, but I was a little worried by what else he might require of me to deliver those answers.

Altis, on the other hand, was an even bigger mystery after meeting him face to face. Even less willing to talk than Versa, it seemed. And yet, maybe he wasn't an especially open person, but all the same I found myself wanting to believe the best about Altis. He seemed confident, respectful of his allies, polite even. Then again that line of his, right before he killed the Taint made me think twice.

"The true story is one we're still working to uncover," I wrote next, "but I've seen with my own eyes that something, something incredible and strange, is happening among us."

Maybe not the most professional thing I'd ever written, but I figured it was good enough to get a few people eager to here more. As soon as I had more.

I got out a cord and transferred the footage I'd taken of Versa and transferred it to my laptop, and was about to put it in an email to Alex when I stopped myself. This wasn't something I could send in something as impersonal as an email. This was something I had to turn in personally, to see the look on Alex's face when he watched the footage and realized I was doing better covering this story than Troy could've on his best day.

Even though it was getting kind of late in the day, I walked over to the garage where I'd left my car, drove back then packed up as fast as I could. I felt a sudden urge to get home, see something familiar instead of all the crummy little towns I'd been going to hear stories about monsters.

Inside of half an hour of finishing my article I had checked out and was on the highway again. It surprised me by being so empty. In the first forty-five minutes or so of driving in silence, and getting sick of it and turning on the radio just to have some background noise, I think I only passed about ten cars.

There was a roar suddenly to one side of my car, but I could've sworn it was from something that had appeared in the passenger seat. I looked over and saw a guy riding a motorcycle literally inches away from the side of my car. Just before he pulled something off his belt and it looked like a flock of crows had taken off from his back and shoulders I was sure I'd seen a suit of red and black armor.

And then…there was Versa. He had on a motorcycle helmet and sunglasses, but the full face, the strong jaw, and mostly that confident, knowing grin that he shot me as he sped up and out of sight. I leaned back heavily in my seat, and stared numbly at the road ahead. What had he just done? What had I missed in my desire to get back and hand in my work?

"-demolished by what witnesses describe as a 'cockroach monster'," said the radio all of a sudden. "However, witnesses also mention a man in red armor killing the monster and sucking some kind of block slime off a human corpse inside it. Authorities have so far declined to comment."

The report sent questions flooding into my head that I realized I hadn't thought to ask myself. Had that been Versa? Or maybe another of those characters? How many were there, anyway? Where did their weapons come from? Were they vigilantes or some kind of special operation trying to deal with the monsters? It was pretty obvious there were at least two factions among them, but who was who? What, exactly, was prompting them to put on those suits and go out to risk their lives fighting monsters?

I sighed so loud I was surprised the windows didn't cracked. All these reports I'd hunted down, even getting to talk the people working in the shadows to kill the monsters, and I hadn't even scratched the surface of this story.

Who was I kidding? I was no journalist. I should've tailed them after the fight. I should've come up with clever ways to pump them for information when I had the chance. A chance I might never get again.

My shot at the big time, I'd been telling myself that since I talked to my first greasy barfly who'd seen a Taint. It was what kept me going as I drove around the ass-end of the state hearing all those wild stories from all those nuts. Even after all I'd seen, I still didn't think even half of them were true. What did I have to show for all of it besides a video Versa had probably let me take out of pity? My shot, and I'd blown it.

The rest of the drive back to Rittersburg seemed to last five times as long as I'd expected because I spent the rest of the time having thoughts like that. I'd shut off the radio because I didn't need the extra distraction. Or worse, more reason to hate myself.

It was another good half an hour before I pulled up outside my apartment complex. I was torn between the possibility of being seen carrying a load of bags up to my place as dark was starting to set in, and having to haul everything upstairs first thing in the morning when I was sure I'd be feeling even worse. I didn't get to dwell on it long.

As soon as I stepped out of the car two guys in long coats seemed to melt out of the shadows next to my building and walked toward me. My instinct was to make a break for it, or climb back in the car and make a break for it. Then the closer guy said something.

"You don't have anything to worry about from us, Madeleine."

I peered at him. The stubble on his cheeks and chin was new, and as a streetlight overhead flicked on I saw his cheeks were more sunken and the rings under his eyes were darker than I remembered. But there was no mistaking those eyes, that felt like lances of ice going through me as we made eye contact. It was the man I'd helped escape from police custody a few days before.

"I'd leave town if I were you," he said simply and looking right past me as if he was talking to the air. "Things are about to get very bad here."

"What do you mean things are about to get bad?" I asked, even though I knew exactly what he meant.

"You did me a favor, now I'm doing you one in return," he said, still looking past me. "Leave town. You'll be in danger every minute if you stay." Then he turned around, hands in his pockets like he'd only told me the time of day, and walked away down the street.

Not this time. I reached out to grab him by the shoulder, but the other guy grabbed me by the wrist and glared at me. He shoved me back, but before he did I was struck by how he looked a lot like Altis. They had the same loose chestnut brown hair, even if his was shorter than Altis's. They had the same thin faces, but this one didn't have the sunken cheeks or dark rings under his eyes. He had the exact same cold, penetrating eyes, though.

"You heard him, leave town. Before they get you." Then he turned and walked away briskly to catch up with Altis. They went around a corner, but after spending an hour stewing in my own regret I stumbled after them as fast as I could. Just like I'd expected, they were out of sight by the time I got over there. I ran down the block peering into alleys, but there was nobody in a long coat anywhere, let alone with piercing eyes.

But rather than feeling like my entire life had been a waste like I had for the drive in, I suddenly felt energized. Altis was here, right in Rittersburg. And he said things were about to get bad, which meant there were a lot of Taint he was there to kill. He even had someone with him who had to be from whatever group had tasked itself with killing the Taint. Which probably meant there were too many around for even Altis to deal with.

Yeah, I should've done what he said, gotten in my car and drove up to my mom's place for a few days.

But she didn't raise me to be satisfied with getting halfway up the mountain.


	8. Chapter 8

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. If you're interested, just ask.

Note: Once again, this is an experiment and I need all the feedback I can get. Once again, head over to my homepage, Spectrum of Madness, to check out the artwork for this story. Merry Christmas to all my great readers!

I hadn't heard the sounds of nighttime Rittersburg in a long, long time. Amazing how knowing monsters are real after all and not knowing where they are does wonders to the desire to pay attention to every little thing.

Tires screeched in the distance, and I imagined someone swerving out of the way as a monster sprang out in front of them. There was no screaming or sound of metal being torn apart, but that didn't do much to put my imagination to rest.

A black shape zipped across the orange light from the streetlights filtering in through the blinds, or at least I thought it did. Maybe the monsters…the Taint were after me for helping Altis. Or maybe they were after me for trying to learn find out more about them. Or maybe a Taint was near and was just planning to kill me because it felt like doing that and I was handy.

I sighed and hoped I didn't wake up the family next door. I'd made up my mind not to give up on this story, but I was still feeling plenty frustrated with how little I'd learned after all the digging I'd done. They were monsters that looked like animals crossed with people, and if the stories I'd been told were true they started out as normal people. How they became Taint I didn't know, but the name lent itself to a few strange possibilities.

That was about it. It would be hard to get answers from Altis or any of his buddies when I ran into them again. Or even his rivals, unless Versa was willing to cut me another deal. And I wasn't sure how to ask a Taint for information without getting my head bitten off.

I shut my eyes as hard as I could and tried to breathe in slowly. I had to seem confident and in control when I reported to my editor in the morning, no matter how I felt about what was going on inside. I had to get to the bottom of this, and if I wanted the American Graphic's continued help it wouldn't do me any good to look like I hadn't slept a wink since taking the story.

I tried to assure myself that if any monsters were after me, Altis would be keeping an eye on me. If not out of interest in my survival, at least in having an easy way to find more of them. It must've worked, because the next thing I remembered was waking up the next morning completely intact.

I took my time getting up, mainly because I was putting together all the gas receipts and motel bills I'd been collecting while I was away. It didn't add up to an awful lot, I hadn't stayed anywhere with a personal hot tub, but I'd need that money back at the end of the month if I wanted to keep the bed I'd spent the last night in. Unless this story really did land me some offers from big-time newspapers…nah.

I stapled them all together, took a quick shower and came out feel ling like I'd been born for the second time. After that I put on some actual clean clothes, from my actual closet, ran an actual brush through my hair, packed up my laptop and started the walk to work. It was kind of far, but it felt like I'd been away for years and I wanted to reacquaint myself with the place. Look for places Taint might hide while it was still daylight, that kind of thing.

The Taint. Good God, how could I be so nonchalant about them? They weren't just stories I'd heard anymore, I'd seen them with my own eyes. Twice. I could even sort of remember what the Rat Taint smelled like. And believe me, you don't know want to know what it smelled like.

As I climbed down the stairs and shut the door behind me, I stopped for a second and realized, for the first time I think, just how many people were out on the street. Walking, biking, driving and skating past. Some had dogs on leashes. Some pushed their kids along in strollers. Any one of them could've been a Taint. Any one of them could be waiting for whatever trigger told them to mutate and…well, I didn't really know what they were after. They could've wanted to kill people I supposed, but in the back of my mind I didn't really want to believe their goals were something so, well, lame.

The walk to work was kind of a tense one. I snuck glances at a lot of the people I passed, kind of expecting some to have those fiery eyes the Taint I'd seen had had before they showed what they were hiding behind those human faces. I eventually shook that off by just repeating my own belief that they had to be serving some greater purpose than a few random murders, and wouldn't just attack me in the street in broad daylight. That went to hell as I thought I saw someone with glowing eyes pass me before I rounded the corner to the building where I worked.

The American Graphic, since you've probably never read it, isn't what you'd call a large or prestigious publication. I might have intimated that by wanting to move up to something bigger. It takes up the top floor of a two-story building that's one of the older ones in its part of Rittersburg. How old? Old enough that when I show up at the office I have to take the stairs every time.

The place was a lot like I remembered it. Big and empty. There were desks, but the staff we had were out tracking down their stories, most of them out of town. The computers on them were four years old and covered with dust. Yes, mine too. And no, not just because I'd been out of the office for a while.

The only other person there was Troy Darrent.

He'd been at the Graphic about a year and a half longer than I had. He had a dazzling smile that seemed artificial if he held it for more than a few seconds at a time, and a hairstyle meant to look professional but all I ever thought of when I saw him with it was all the money he was pouring into the hair gel companies.

But for all his cheesy veneer, I had to respect his abilities as a journalist. He could get anybody talking about whatever he needed to know, or know in a few seconds if they had nothing to tell him. His writing wasn't exactly eloquent, but I felt he was at least a level above me.

The only reason I was hunting down Taint was Troy had been too sick to leave his bed when the editor was trying to place someone with the assignment. I swear I had nothing to do with that, but I'm only a little ashamed to admit I saw an opportunity.

"Well, if it isn't our golden girl, back from chasing monsters," he said with a smirk.

"Glad I got the job, Troy? Afraid it'd be bad for your image?"

"Hell, Maddy. We may not be the _New York Times_, but monsters? What kind of rag does Alex think this is?"

"You'll see," I said, wary of what Altis had told me the other night. Troy followed me to the door of the editor's office.

I gripped the knob of Alex's door and twisted, and walked in just in time to interrupt him as he was yelling at another one of the reporters. Sounded like it was about expenses. He hung up without giving them a chance to answer.

"Well, she's back! And I hope she's got something to show for her time out of town besides a bunch of bills," Alex, an overweight guy whose hair looked like Troy's if it was starting to thin, said as I came in.

"Just wait 'til you see this," I said and pressed the power switch on my computer. I went straight to the file I was looking for and in a second Versa was fighting for my life with the Mantis Taint on screen.

I'm not sure why I refer to the Taint like that, with the capital letters and everything. They're monsters. Unclean, murderous things. They aren't owed any kind of distinction, by me or anyone else. I think it's to remind myself how it seems like it's some kind of game to them where each one's trying to find the scariest thing it can turn into a monster, or the best way to kill people.

Alex sat back hard in his chair and folded his hands in front of his face. After a minute the video ended and he just sat there for a while looking at the screen without saying anything. Then he looked up at me.

"How did you get that video, Madeleine?" he asked.

"I followed some clues to where the monster was hiding out. Schmoozed some cops, talked to some people who heard weird noises. Found it the same time that guy did."

"And where's the camera you used to shoot the video?" he asked slowly. Coldly, almost. "No way could that crappy thing you carry around get something this clear."

I dug around in my bag, getting a little uneasy. Alex was never like this. He was always picking apart my sentence structure or chewing me out for not thinking to ask some arcane question I couldn't imagine a reader caring about. I held out the camera Versa had let me keep, just close enough that Alex could get a good look but not so he could get any ideas about grabbing it.

"How did you afford one like that? That's top-of-the-line equipment."

"A…friend gave me his." I wasn't ready to talk about this. Not until I had something substantial to tell about Altis and whoever else was killing Taint. I wasn't ready to let Alex know I'd gotten so close and learned so little.

It was a feeble explanation. He knew it. Troy knew it. I knew it. They knew I hadn't gotten this because I could make it in the big leagues after all. I could feel my future slipping away.

Then suddenly the window rattled. I ran over to it, sure it was a Taint, but instead I saw the shape of a person, bright green and covered in metal flying past.

Altis. He had a form that could fly. And it had a color like his other ones. Green. If I'd been told right, anyway…

The next thing I knew I was halfway down the stairs and awkwardly jamming my computer back into its bag. I ran after Altis in the direction I'd seen him going last. It had been a few seconds already, I didn't have time to waste getting transportation.

What was I doing? Altis could have been halfway across Rittersburg before I even got down the stairs. And if he was flying around he was chasing a Taint. And it wasn't unreasonable for me to assume Taint were human on t he inside. What if they saw me watching and thought to take a hostage to get Altis to back off? Would he, or would he shoot right through me to get at the Taint? Would it get him to back off then kill me as soon as he was out of sight because it didn't need a shield anymore?

That was my answer, wasn't it? To get the answers.

There wasn't far to go before the noises started to guide me. I heard a cawing so loud windows nearby shook from the sound. I looked up and just like I was afraid, there was a giant crow swooping back and forth above a half-built scaffolding (I wanted to believe that was the first unoccupied place the other fighter could find). Swooping after it, slicing at its wings with a sword was someone in green armor with wide metal wings.

Crow Taint looked a lot like you'd expect, a crow the size of a person, but it had no arms. Just the ridiculously long wings stretching out from its sides. The feet looked big enough to rip someone's head off their shoulders, or squish it like a grape.

As I got closer, the Crow Taint got above Altis and dug its feet into his metal wings then twisted, ripping huge holes the wings. His opponent managed to stab the sword into one of the Crow Taint's stomach, and it shrieked and went rigid for just a second. In that second they both slammed into a vertical girder then hit the ground hard enough to leave a depression in it.

The armored combatant jumped up and even though I hadn't seen that form before, I was sure it was Altis. His eyes were a blazing yellow, and of the few of his kind I'd seen, only he had eyes like that. I assumed that was some signal he was ready for battle, but my mind was on who would get up first. To my endless relief, it was Altis, but he climbed to his feet slowly, weighed down by the twisted wings on his back. He touched his belt buckle and they fell off, but the Crow Taint was already off the ground again.

Altis jumped and got it in the stomach again with his sword, and it shrieked again. But unlike last time, it didn't fall to the ground. In fact the wound Altis had just opened plus the one from before closed up. Lumps formed on its shoulders under its wings and two extra legs with those giant feet appeared. It sprouted a tail with a big knob of what looked like bone on the end. And _then_ it touched down, landing on all fours. It looked more like a griffon than a crow now, but it still wasn't done changing. The top and bottom parts of its beak split down the middle, so when it opened its mouth the beak folded back into four parts around a circular maw filled with pointy little teeth.

Again, Altis jumped high, like he was trying to land on its back and held his sword point-down as he did. That was the only part that made it into Crow Taint before its tail came up and hit him in the chest and he went flying backwards. His sword stayed where it was, lodged in Crow Taint's back, but it didn't even seem to notice. It took off again and slammed its tail into Altis's chest just as he was peeling himself off the ground again.

Time seemed to slow down as Altis fell back from the blow. Sparks flew from his chest and the yellow light in his eyes turned to a dull red. His arms went wide and he landed hard on his back, sending up a huge dust cloud as he hit.

As the dust at the bottom of the scaffolding billowed out, it hit me why everything was moving in slow-mo: Altis was losing. The superhero who'd saved so many people whose stories I'd heard, saved them from monsters like the one he was fighting now. The one who'd saved me from two monsters at once in front of my very own eyes, was taking another hit to the head from the Crow Taint's tail as it swooped past him. What the hell had happened? Crow Taint landed on all fours and stalked over to where Altis was laying, apparently stunned.

It was in that instant I decided to do something very, very stupid.

I picked up a cinderblock lying at the edge of the construction area and threw it at Crow Taint's head. The block actually caught the Taint on the chin, and it looked up at me then opened its beak in four parts and screeched at me.

Altis didn't jump up, didn't grab his sword and push it into Crow Taint's black heart, didn't do anything with the opening he'd only have for who knew how many more seconds. I looked around for something, anything I could conceivably use as a weapon and grabbed a knife-shaped sliver of concrete. I didn't like my odds fighting the thing without him, but I couldn't back out. This was my chance. I had to take it. I had to know. Crow Taint beat its wings and took off…

Then there was somebody next to me. Someone wearing black and white armor like Altis's, but with dark red eyes. They had a weird gun in one hand, and aimed it at Crow Taint. It shot out a metal cable that went through one of Crow Taint's wings, and another one of the armored people, this one wearing blue and white, melted out of the shadows on the other side of the construction site. He had another of the guns and shot another cable through Crow Taint's other wing. It screeched but both of them hit another trigger on the backs of their guns and another cable shot out the back and anchored to the side of a building. It struggled, but the cables held it in place.

That was when Altis jumped up and pulled a green crystal out of his belt buckle. The green parts of his armor peeled off and disappeared, and he was back in the suit he'd worn when he killed the two Taint in front of me outside the police precinct.

"Death is the greatest mercy," he said, with a calm that actually made me edgy. He took a running jump at Crow Taint, then launched into a jump-kick with both feet. "Altis Kick," he said, still calmly, and his boots erupted with light before they smashed into Crow Taint's throat.

It screeched again, louder than ever, but then it went limp and hit the ground. Just like before its body started to melt, and Altis and both his buddies touched their belt buckles. Just like before, the black gunk was sucked into their belts. Just like before, there was a naked corpse left when the slime was gone. A woman, this time.

Then all three of them turned and looked at me.

"You're still here," grunted the one in blue and white in a voice I recognized as the guy who'd been with Altis the other night.

"Hey, I just saved your friend's life," I retorted. "That crow thing would've knocked his head off if she hit him again."

He growled at me, but Altis held up a hand and he shut up. Altis studied my face hard for a second before he said anything. Probably didn't recognize me when I took the time to look like a member of polite society. Then he grabbed me by the wrist. I bit my lip. I didn't see how I could pull away without losing the hand.

"Let's go," he said and led the others-including me-into an alley. They weaved through the spaces between buildings so fast it was only a few seconds before I'd lost any concept of where we were. As we passed through a shaft of light I could see Altis had reverted to his sunken-cheeked secret identity. Then he led the three of us out onto the street again. We were being followed by the other man I'd seen with Altis before, but his other companion had become a slightly-built black woman.

"Madeleine," Altis said gently but with no attempt to hide some annoyance. "I told you to leave town for a while."

"I can't," I said. I pulled indignantly and he let go of my wrist.

"Why not?" the other man asked, making no attempt to hide a large amount of annoyance.

"It's my job." "Your job?" he snapped, but again Altis held up a hand and he shut up. Not without grumbling to himself this time.

"Madeleine," Altis said, and I felt like he was thinking of me as a child. "I didn't warn you to leave because I'm some kind of smitten vampire who might forget his manners and drink your blood or something stupid like that. Taint are already appearing in numbers we've never seen in one place. I can't spare the attention to make sure you're safe, and I certainly can't be expected to constantly look out for you in the middle of a fight. Especially if you're going to antagonize the Taint."

"Hey! She would've knocked your head off if she hit you like that again!" I protested.

"She wouldn't have hit him again," the complainer countered. "Maybe you noticed we had a plan."

Altis sighed. "Take her someplace safe. We've got to take care of that next Taint before it moves."

"Now wait just a bloody minute! I helped you out twice now! Look, just tell me a few things! We can work together on this!" I yelled.

Altis and the other man slipped into the shadows beside another building across the street, and the woman started leading me away in the other direction. Her grip wasn't as harsh as Altis's, but I got the feeling she wasn't about to release it until she was sure I was far enough away not to follow them.

She gave me a look of pity with the same damn stabbing eyes all those people had, and whispered, "I don't fault you for doing your job, but is this really the kind of thing you think the world needs to know about?"

"Don't _you_ think it's a little late to try to keep people in the dark?" I fired back. "Altis's little fight with Horse Taint went viral already."

"You're even using the same designations," she groaned, but I'd be damned if she didn't smile a little as she did. "Damn Versa, I'll kick his teeth in next time I see him."

"What exactly does all this hiding in the shadows get you?" I asked, hopping I'd found a good foothold. "If people knew, they could warn you if they saw a Taint, and they wouldn't throw you in jail for doing that."

"People do know," she sighed. "People in the government know. About the Taint, about us. But they don't know what they're dealing with." "And what is it they're dealing with? Come on, I can understand you people wanting to operate in secrecy before, but if people knew more about the Taint we could do more about them."

She looked at me and continued to drag me along at the same time. It was a while before she said anything else. "It's evil," she finally said. "It knows whatever you want and promises it to you, then shapes itself into whatever it needs to be to make that promise come true. But once you let it in, it spreads. Until it takes over completely."

"Which is why you call it the Taint."

She nodded. "Yes."

"Doesn't sound hard to resist if you know what to expect."

She shot me a sidelong glance as we came out from between two buildings, then let go of my wrist. "Altis thought so too."

"It tried to get Altis?"

She nodded. "Leave town, Madeleine. Get in your car and go. A war's coming." Then just like that, she disappeared into the shadows. I just had time to notice she wore a belt like Altis's, but without a slot for a crystal.

I looked around, trying to get my bearings and I realized I was standing right next to my own apartment building. I sighed.

I started walking, back to the office, and felt things slipping out of my control more with every step.

The deeper I dug, the more I got in over my head. Silly me, I'd assumed things would start making more sense the more exposures I had with these characters. I hadn't found out much from this latest encounter besides even more Taint were coming, and if Crow Taint was any indication, they were getting more powerful. I had to warn people, pass on what Altis's companion had told me.

But what could I say, without saying how I knew this was the truth? How was an armored vigilante who worked with a wanted fugitive a reputable witness? And what if they somehow figured I was an accessory to the murders of the people who turned into Taint for interacting with Altis and his buddies?

I shook my head and silently kissed my job and any hopes of a career goodbye for what would probably be the last time. After all this, what did I have that I could share? Alex had backed me into a corner with asking for where I'd gotten my equipment, and the only real "sources" I had were ones I ran into accidentally and one who seemed more amused by helping me than anything.

You're expecting to hear the story of this Wonder Woman of the journalism scene, I bet, and not some sob story about having my dreams crushed under the heel of reality. Let me tell you, I didn't feel very super right then. And that's probably why what happened next, happened.

I was trying to stay out of the scuzzy part of town even in the shape I was in, even though it would shaved ten minutes off the walk back to the office if nothing happened.

But as I got halfway down the block, I had this feeling something was following me. I looked over my shoulder as unobtrusively as I could manage, and not to brag, but noticing someone was shadowing me is something I'm pretty good at. There was nobody there, and the buildings on that block were too close together for anybody to be skulking around between them, and fenced off besides.

And yet, as soon as I faced front again I heard a voice whispering in my ear. "You're stuck in a rut, aren't you? The doors that would open for you if only you could go anywhere, hear anything without being detected…" The voice was as smooth as silk, and it sounded like my mom trying to calm me down after I fell down and cut myself up trying to skateboard.

I turned and stared back the way I'd come, did a full 360 and still nobody was around. I knew I should be tensing, getting ready to defend myself, but it felt like someone had reached right into my head and pushed the "relax" button.

"You could be more than you've ever been, Madeleine. You could go anywhere you pleased, do anything that struck your fancy. Have more power than you've ever dared admit was your due," the voice was back, not even in my ear now. It was inside my head. I had to run. I had to fight it. I knew that.

But I couldn't.

"Why resist, Madeleine? Power's more than what you want, it's what you _deserve_. You've driven to Hell and back, emptied that slim bank account of yours to capture the story of the century, and you know Alex won't run what you've produced. He owes you. And you can take what you're owed, if you just say one, teensy, little, word."

That words, three letters that would change my life forever, slowly started to form in my brain. Three little letters that would give me the power to get to the bottom of all this once and for all…


	9. Chapter 9

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission.

Note: I wasn't expecting to have this ready this soon, but since it is, it seems a fitting Christmas present to my readers. Also, and forgive me for asking such a weird question, but if Altis was a real show, what do you think the theme song would be like? I hear something like Next Level from Kabuto, but the friend who helped me come up with the premise imagines something like the theme from Firefly. Bear in mind, he's a huge Joss Whedon fan. What do you guys think?

No more being second best to Troy. No more working in a state-only paper like the American Graphic. No more grasping at straws to get the material for stories.

I was dimly aware, somewhere in the cynical part of my mind, that if I accepted this power, it would mean having Altis come after me. Well, fine. Then I wouldn't have to come after him anymore, would I?

"Why wait, Madeleine? You've been overworked and ignored for years. You're owed. What you'll have is nothing compared to what you'll be able to take."

"Ye-"

Before I could form the word there was an explosion of pain as something was ripped away from back of my neck-taking a bit of my skin with it-and I slammed into the ground as suddenly all my strength vanished. Through the haze of taking a hit to the head I could see someone standing over me, squeezing something between their hands that appeared to be trying to ooze out between their fingertips.

In a few seconds my vision had cleared, and I could see it was a woman in a leather jacket almost as black as her hair. She had a mass of black slime clenched in her hands, and threw whatever it was on the ground and stomped on it. I heard a little squeal, but it slithered out from under her shoe and down a storm drain. She turned around and lowered a hand toward me.

"You okay, Maddy?"

"Abby?" There was only one who could call me "Maddy" and not make it sound like they weren't talking to an old lady.

"Why didn't you tell me you were back in town?" she nearly screamed. "Got your big story on monsters all ready to hand in?"

"I notice you're not saying thing one about how you ripped something black and wriggly off my neck."

"What the hell was that?" Abby said, and sounded like she was just trying to humor me. It was kind of a relief, actually.

It took a few deep breaths before I felt up to giving her an answer. "I wish you'd been able to hold it so I could get a look at it, but I think that was one of the monsters before it turns somebody into a monster."

"Okay, girl? Number one, I'm sorry I didn't bring a thermos. Number two, I don't what in the hell you're talkin' about. Are you sayin' the monsters are _people_?"

"I'll tell you all about it after I get back and see if I still have a job. But if anybody whispers in your ear saying they'll give you powers, run like hell," I said.

"I think I'll probably notice the blob on my neck before it starts promising me things," Abby replied.

"I didn't!" I called back as I ran off.

I started running back to the office, but hadn't gone a block before I felt out of breath and had to slow to a plodding walk. I even started panting for breath. Having the Taint almost get into my system, then be yanked out again so violently, it must've left me weak. I stopped outside the office to catch my breath before I went back in. Had to be able to make a good presentation when I got back, after all.

Troy wasn't there when I got back, but the door to Alex's office was wide open.

"Maybe you'd care to tell me what that was all about?" he asked without making it sound like a question. For the first time, and I still don't know why, I was surprised Alex didn't smoke cigars on the job.

"It was one of those monsters. And one of the guys who kills them," I sighed, preparing for the worst.

"Does this guy have a name?"

"Altis."

He peeked an eyebrow curiously. "What kind of name is that?"

"Like a superhero name or something. He got arrested for killing a monster before, you know. Probably doesn't want his real name getting out."

Alex hmphed. "And how did you hear his name, huh? Did he pose on top of a car after killing a monster or something and say, 'Whenever you're in trouble, just call Altis' or some crap like that?"

"Taint," I replied.

"What?"

"Taint. The monsters are called Taint. They start out as…something else, then they tempt people with power and once they give it, start to corrupt the person."

"You know a hell of a lot."

"Just doing my job," I said as casually as I could.

Alex laughed. "So you made friends with these guys and that's how you got that little video of yours, I bet."

"Yeah…"

"Great! You know somebody on the inside, huh? I bet we're the only paper who can say that!"

"I wouldn't say 'know'…"

"You're really starting to blossom here, Maddy, but you gotta stop putting out a weak front like that. You got that story I'm payin' all this money for?"

"Yeah, right here," I said and opened up my computer again. It started fine and a minute later I'd transferred the article and the video onto Alex's computer.

"You keep after this, Maddy," Alex said. I wasn't sure if it sounded more like encouragement or a warning, especially after what he told me next. "This is gonna move a lot of papers. You get closer to these guys, find out everything you can. And get more pictures and video of them in action."

"Sure, Alex. This assignment hasn't killed me yet."

He laughed again. I'd never seen him do that when it wasn't at someone's expense. "That's more like it. You got anymore leads you're gonna follow up on?"

"Yeah, I did, but…I think I'll be looking in town. Altis tells me he's going to be here for a while."

"Even better! Don't let me down, Maddy."

I nodded. "I better see what else I can dig up."

"I'll be waiting to see what that is."

I left the office, holding my breath until the door was shut and I was all the way down the stairs. I let the air out of my lungs and it felt like I'd dropped the entire building off my back. That hadn't been what I was expecting at all. Not that I was complaining. Alex's lack of professional ethics I admit I hadn't seen coming, but then again, I wouldn't have put it past him either.

Before I even realized what I was doing, my cell phone was in hand and I had dialed the last digit of Abby's number.

She answered halfway through the first ring. "Maddy, you're back!"

"Yeah! And a blob attacked me!"

"Is that all you can talk about?"

"Let me think, YES!"

Abby chuckled on her end. "So when do I get to hear about all the monsters you ran into on your little trip?"

"In twenty minutes at your place, if that's okay."

"Sure!" she shrieked. I had to lean away from the phone.

"Great, be right over." I jogged the couple of blocks to Abby's little building. She was leaning against the front wall as I came up. Without a word she grabbed by the wrist, led me inside and we caught the elevator up to her apartment. She had a steaming cup of a sweet-smelling tea sitting right inside the door waiting. For me, it turned out.

In a way, I blame having someone like Abby for a best friend for taking the assignment that led to meeting Altis and Versa. Abby doesn't have any such thing as a comfort zone, unless you count the entire universe. She's always pulling me out of my safe little space and trying to get me to live a little. So, of course, she wanted to hear all about it when I got back from spending weeks tracking down monsters.

"Damn," she said as Versa cut Mantis Taint apart with a kick on my laptop. "Are you sure this isn't some kind of movie or something?"

"There was no flash of light or anything when he could've switched with a stuntman," I said. "Besides, when I saw those people turn into monsters…no effing way was that special effects." I shuddered at the memories.

"I believe you, but you're not really going to leave like this Altis said, are you?"

"Are you kidding? I spent weeks chasing this down and then he comes right up to me and says he's going to be in town killing monsters for a while. Where am I supposed to go? And what am I supposed to do if I can't deliver this story?"

"Good girl. So how do we find him?"

I sighed. "That's the thing, we really don't. He seems to know where the Taint are-"

Abby snickered. "The Taint? What kind of name is that?"

I glared at her and rubbed the back of my neck.

"Okay, okay. Sorry. If I saw the things you did I wouldn't be joking, I bet."

"As I was saying, he seems to know where Taint are, but obviously he didn't share that with me. Versa might've if I'd given him Altis's slime collection like he wanted, but if I'd done that I doubt I would've lived long enough to hear anything anyway."

Abby rested her chin in her hand and stared of into space. "Well, if he came to you for help once, maybe he'll do it again?"

I sipped at the tea and the irritation that was building up over not knowing where to go next subsided a little. "Unless Altis gets arrested again, I kind of doubt it. Versa doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who'd do something like that twice anyway."

Abby clapped me on the shoulder and I looked over at her. A mischievous little grin danced on her lips. "Hey, let's just forget about this for one night, huh? You're home. After you call Jo, let's party."

"You saying you want her to come with us?"

"Not…exactly," Abby replied, and I had to admit Jo wasn't the most fun person to have when you were trying to party. "But you've been away a while and you should still let her know you're back and didn't get eaten or anything."

I shuffled around in my bag until I found my cell. I'm ashamed to say it took me a second to remember the number.

After three rings, someone picked up. "Hello?" said a woman's calm, alert voice.

"Jo? Is that you?" That wasn't the voice of the woman I remembered talking to before leaving Rittersburg.

"Maddy?" the voice asked, and automatically I felt liked I'd aged thirty years. "My God, you're still alive! Hope the monsters weren't too rough on you. How's my favorite sister?"

"When did you get so perky?" was the only thing I could think to say.

"You mean I haven't always been like this?" She was teasing me. Was I sure I'd dialed my sister's number?

"Jo, seriously, what's going on?"

"All right, all right. I met someone."

"That's great! What's he like?" I asked.

"I'm not telling you. You'll try to steal him."

"Because I can't possibly be happy that my sister's finally stopped being depressed." Abby arched an eyebrow as she listened in on my end of the conversation. "Look, Abby and me were thinking of going out tonight. You up for coming with us?"

"That could be a lot of fun, actually. Where are you going?"

"Where are we going?" I asked Abby.

"How about 51?"

"How about 51?"

"Sounds great, I'll meet you guys there at…5:30 sound good?"

"Yeah, that sounds fine. See you then." "See you then!" Then she hung up.

Abby leaned over, her eyes twinkling. "So? What happened to her?"

I shrugged. "She has a boyfriend. We'll probably meet him there too. Let's get going."

51 wasn't exactly a big club, or even a nice club, but the beers weren't too expensive and the people who hung out there weren't too scummy. There were only a few couples there already when Abby and I showed up, and one of them waved us over.

It was Jocelyn Moore, her brown eyes sparkling and her red-blond hair in a simple but elegant little ponytail. Sitting next to her was a guy who looked a year or two older than her. His face was clean-shaven and his black hair cut close to his scalp. When he looked up at us, I was sort of relieved and disappointed that his eyes didn't seem to cut into my soul. As I sized him up I immediately thought of the words "thoroughly unremarkable."

"Guys, this is Chris," Jo said. Chris smiled a little and waved, but didn't say anything. "We've been going out for about a week, but it feels like it's been years."

Abby sat down, but I didn't. "I have to hit the ladies' room, why don't you guys order us a round and you can tell me all about it when I get back?"

As I walked across the empty dance floor, I almost ran a waitress crossing the other way on the other side. I only got a glimpse at her face, and I only bothered to look because I swore she was staring at my face as if trying to recognize it. She looked an awful lot like the woman I'd seen with Altis when he stopped me outside my apartment building...

I was almost to the door when I heard a drunken giggle behind me. Some guy I'd never seen before, but who was somehow even more unremarkable than my sister's new boyfriend, staggered closer and reached out for my hair just before I managed to yank it away.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I demanded, edging away as I did.

"They said I'd be strong, and they were right…but I'm ugly too?" he jabbered and lunged for my shoulders. I kneed him in the stomach as hard as I could and the drunken smile disappeared off his face as he landed in a heap on the floor. Then he rolled onto his back and jumped back up like nothing had happened.

He grabbed me by the shoulders, and the skin was starting to peel away on his arms. Underneath was a bumpy green skin and his fingers had already swollen into stubby but sharp-looking talons.

"They said I'd be strong, but I'm ugly! But I'm strong enough to take whatever I want!" The rest of his skin fell away, and his head split open to reveal a hideous new one that sloped forward into a dull beak just below a pair of beady black eyes. I kicked at his knees hard as I could, but not enough to make him loosen his grip.

"They can't touch me," he giggled before his voice became a menacing chirp.

"Better let me handle this, Madeleine," said a the waitress, who was suddenly next to me. There was a ringing behind me then she came vaulting toward the Taint, in that black and white suit of armor, and landed a kick on the his chest. He let go of me and went sprawling into a table.

Then he just got right up again, and I realized he hadn't finished changing. Something was growing out of his back, something thick and shiny and black. It was right then I realized what kind of Taint he was. He was a giant turtle.

Altis's buddy jump-kicked him in the stomach but he suddenly retracted into his shell and rolled out of the way like a giant wheel. As she went flying past he rolled around behind her, shot his legs back out and sprang at her, sticking his head out again and head-butting her in the back. She gasped in surprised and smashed a table as she came crashing down onto it.

"Maddy!" Abby screamed as she came barreling across the room toward me. Jo and her boyfriend sat at their table still, holding each other and quivering.

"Let's get out of here!" she yelled and grabbed me by the arm. My instinct was to stay, to see what happened so I could tell the world about it, but as Altis's friend jump-kicked Turtle Taint in the stomach without even moving him before he sent her flying with a smack, I had to admit Abby probably had a point.

I looked back at Jo and caught her eye, and pointed as energetically as I could toward the nearest door relative to her. I didn't need to bother. As soon as Turtle Taint had seen his opponent wasn't in any hurt to get back up from that last hit, he turned to face me, then rolled over after us as Abby pulled me, staggering behind her, toward the big green EXIT sign in the nearest wall.

The wall exploded out behind us as we made it into the alley behind the club. I heard it crushing things behind us as it rolled after us, but Abby and I made it to the street before it caught up to us and ran in different directions. The giant shell rolled past us and into the street, then it landed flat and Turtle Taint stuck its head and legs out and scuttled toward me.

I jammed my hand into my bag looking for something I could use against a giant turtle. But if one of those superheroes couldn't slow it down, what was I supposed to do? I wrapped my hands around the heaviest thing I could find, and it was the camera Versa gave me. It seemed wrong to weaponize it, but then for the first time I saw a rectangular gadget on the side that looked like it had come loose with all the running. In the middle of it was a big blue button that said HELP.

I hoped it was help against giant monster turtles as I pushed it.

Turtle Taint chirped loud and then jumped, actually jumped at me. I ducked under him and crouch-ran across the street as fast I could. I saw Abby waving me over from the where we'd just been, but I didn't want to make her a target by being next to me.

Turtle Taint was scuttling after me again, then reared up on its rear legs, probably to jump, when something zoomed to a stop in front of it. It was an armored motorcycle, and on it was a man in a black and indigo suit of armor.

"Versa…"

"We meet again, Miss Moore. Did I mention that little device? Sorry."

The Taint reared up, about to attack. I switched the camera on and aimed it at the fight that was beginning. Turtle Taint sprang, at Versa this time, but he vaulted off his bike and kicked it at the base of its head. It screeched as a jet of blood went up from where Versa made contact, then crashed into the middle of the street.

But this wasn't some dumb monster to let the same trick work twice, apprently. He pushed himself back onto all fours but retracted his head into his shell enough to see his enemy but not far enough that Versa had anything to kick. It crouched then jumped, crashing into Versa who grabbed the shell by its sides but was picked up and carried by its forces. The shell pushed him into a brick wall and Versa grunted in pain. Before he could recover a stubby arm shot up and connected with his chin. Then it exposed just enough of its face to open its beak and spew thick black goo onto Versa's mask.

The stuff oozed and clawed, or whatever you'd call a formless mass trying to dig its way into your face. Turtle Taint pummeled Versa's midriff with its arms while he staggered back and forth from the blows and trying to get a grip on the stuff on his face with one hand. The other…the other held a piece of red crystal that he slipped into the opening in his belt buckle.

"Blood," it announced forbiddingly, and a dull golden shape, something curvy with lots of sharp spiky parts, rose from his belt and latched onto his mask, burning away the black slime. Versa's armor shimmered, then the next thing I knew it was dark red all over with black edging. Hanging from either side of his belt was a curved knife, and he didn't waste any time pulling them loose. Turtle Taint sprayed more black stuff from inside its shell, but then the weirdest thing happened to Versa.

His armor looked like it was melting, then I realized it was his whole body that was losing solidity until he'd turned into a roiling red mass hovering a few feet off the ground. The black stuff passed right through it, but then the Versa-mass flew across the street, right into Turtle Taint's head-hole. It squawked, at least that's what I'd call the noise it made, took a few drunken steps backward and bawled in what I hoped was pain and landed flat on its shell.

Then Turtle Taint's stomach exploded, splattering everything within fifteen feet with black slime as the red mass shot out of its body. The mass formed itself back into Versa, who came plummeting back down toward Turtle Taint with those knives aimed at its arms. He stabbed it all the way into the ground and Turtle Taint stuck its head out to scream. Versa jumped high, then his feet glowed with power in what I was starting to recognize as the indicator that he was about to deal the final blow. Versa landed on Turtle Taint, sending black slime flying everywhere.

Versa touched his belt buckle and said, "Vital Reclamation." The droplets of slime flowed into it from wherever they'd landed, including the stuff on top of me and Abby. I tried to get a look at the corpse's face, but Versa came over and covered the lens with his hand.

"Let's not meddle in the affairs of the dead."

"I'm just doing my job," I retorted.

"So…you're one of those superheroes Maddy's been making friends with," Abby said as she came over and thoughtfully interrupted us.

"I really need to be on my way," Versa said and turned back to his bike, but I grabbed his wrist. He turned and looked at me curiously, not pulling away or anything yet.

"Just a damn minute. This little whatsit called you, I bet." I held up the gizmo with the "help" button.

"I wasn't faraway when I got the signal, but yes."

"One of Altis's friends was down there when that thing attacked me," I said. "By calling you and letting you take care of it instead of her, I let you collect all that slime. I did you a favor."

He chuckled. "So you did…and I suppose you want to be paid back. Do I even have to guess what you want?"

"Probably not," I replied.

"Then let's find someplace quiet, hmmm?" Versa said. He pulled his bike over to an empty corner of the street and without waiting for the two of us, walked away. Abby and I exchanged glances, and followed him to a big steakhouse I'd passed a hundred times but never been in. It was a little after six on a Friday, and the dinner rush was just getting started. Why he went inside, I was sure.

As soon as I opened the door my ears were assaulted by the conversations of a good forty diners. Versa walked straight up to the hostess, said something and she led him to an empty booth in the corner that I would've guessed was reserved for VIPs. He sat down as if he belonged there. And if he could get me off for aiding a suspected murderer, he probably did.

"Let's not waste any time, shall we?" Versa said as soon as the hostess had vanished back into the crowd. "I'll tell you what's going on, Miss Moore, or at least as much as won't jeopardize my activities."

"Can I quote you on that?" I asked.

Versa smirked at me. "Yes, you may."

I settled back as Versa started to talk, low enough that people outside the boot would have a hard time eavesdropping on us but loud enough we could hear him over the general noise.

"As you know, both Altis and I track down and kill people infected by what we call the Taint. Where it comes from, we don't know. However, we do know that it has the ability to turn people it touches into monsters by promising them whatever they think they need to improve their situation."

The back of my neck started to itch as he described it. "I know. I'm pretty sure it tried to grab me today."

"You mean that black stuff I ripped off your neck this morning?" Abby asked.

Versa steepled his fingers thoughtfully in front of his face. "If that's true, then you're a very lucky woman, Miss Moore. Much luckier than our friend Altis. You see, usually people aren't able to resist the power the Taint promises them to be allowed into their body. Of the few that are, it can usually eliminate them by producing a fatal shock to the brain.

"Now, Altis works for a group dedicated to hunting down the Taint, freeing its victims, and then collecting the Taint itself and destroying it before it can go on to create more trouble in a new body. I commend the purity of their intentions, but they're…misguided, to put it gently."

Abby gave him a cold stare. "Getting rid of monsters is misguided, huh?"

"That's not what I meant, Miss Carver," Versa countered. Abby's mouth dropped open as he announced her last name, and she sat back quietly to let him finish. "Misguided, because they don't see what the Taint would allow people to do, if it could be preserved for study. It turns its host into a creature that's half-human, half-animal, but what animal is determined by what it needs to be in order to satisfy the host's desire. For that poor mess we left back in the street, I'd guess he was afraid of being hurt or some such thing.

"Think of the possibilities of such a power for a minute. It can reconfigure itself as needs dictate. If we could figure out how that works, we could adapt humankind to life in almost any conditions. To live in the vacuum of space or at the bottom of the ocean. Hell, we could probably cure most diseases. Altis and his friends want to throw that all away. Tell me, does 'misguided' even come close?"

He didn't wait to see if I did. He fished into his coat and laid five hundred-dollar bills on the table. "Have a pleasant meal, ladies. Feel free to keep whatever you don't need. If you'll excuse me, I was preoccupied when you gave me that call."

Versa got up, but I wasn't quite done feeling in control of the situation. "Tell me one more thing before you go back to your monster hunting. How do you know so much about Altis's side of things?"

"If you've seen his friends in action you've probably noticed how much more powerful he is," Versa said.

"Yeah, so?"

"It used to be he wasn't the only one."


	10. Chapter 10

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. But don't be afraid to ask.

Author's Note: One other thing. If you've got an opinion on something I wrote, don't be afraid to share it, good or bad. If you're uncomfortable with it sitting out on the review page for the whole net to see, send me a p-mail.

Versa had vanished through the door of the restaurant, and even with the confidence I'd been feeling I didn't try to stop him. After all, now I'd seen him turn two monsters into piles of black sputum before my very own eyes. He probably had to go do that to another one.

"So…does the other one talk to you?" Abby asked from across the table.

"Sure he does," I answered. "He tells me to get out of town because Rittersburg has as many Taint as cockroaches. And…" I thought about another example and couldn't help chuckling.

Abby tilted her head. "What?"

"Nothing."

"What? Maddy, you can't do that."

"I just realized he actually made a joke once."

"Oh," Abby looked down at her menu for a minute. "So when do we go and find this guy?"

"If I knew, we'd be out there doing it already."

Abby grinned. "Can't, swetie. The Blood Angels are playing Ground Zero tonight."

"Is that what you guys are calling yourselves now?"

She patted me on the shoulder. "You're not the only one on your way to the top, you know."

"Didn't we already go to a club tonight? The one where I almost got flattened by a giant snapping turtle?" I asked her.

"That was to loosen up before we go to Ground Zero. Then it's work."

"There are people that are really killer mutants running around in this city, you know that, right? You ripped the important part of one off my neck not twelve hours ago, remember?" I prodded her.

"Maddy, I'm always here for you, but I got a career too, remember? Besides, we have a new guitarist. This one's actually good. Plus, there was just one monster back at 51. There's probably a whole bunch at Ground Zero."

Lucky for me, that's when the waiter came and rescued me from that conversation with my insane best friend. After he went away to get my Caesar salad and Abby's ½-pound burger, I dialed Jo's number.

"Hello? Maddy?" a frantic voice on the other end asked.

"Jo? Are you okay?" Jo had always lacked something in the way of being able to keep herself going when things got rough. I hoped that had started to change after she found a boyfriend.

"Am I okay? What about you? A huge turtle chased you out of the club! Please tell me you got away!" "I'm fine, I'm fine," I said. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay. That there weren't anymore monsters back at the club."

She sighed on her end. "Chris got me out of there as soon as the turtle guy turned into a monster. I was just about to call you and make sure you were okay."

"I'm fine, Jo. Don't worry about me," I replied.

She laughed. A sarcastic kind of laugh. "How can I not worry about you, Maddy? You're chasing down monsters for a living and it seems like they've started chasing you down first."

"If it was easy, everybody'd do it."

"Don't joke, Maddy. This is your life we're talking about," Jo snapped.

"Yeah, we are, and if I can pull this off maybe my life is finally gonna get better. Bye, Jo." I hung up.

"Sounds like Jo wants to be your mom. Isn't that your job?" Abby asked.

"I guess I don't blame her, but somebody has to find out what's going on. I'd kind of like to think I'm the only one who's gotten this close to Altis and his buddies."

Abby slapped me on the back. "Nobel prize. That's your new mantra."

I won't bore you with more talking. We had a pleasant meal and Abby literally wouldn't let me leave until I accepted the balance of Versa's monetary gift. She's over six feet tall and I've seen her flatten a guy with one punch. I don't doubt she could hurt me if she wanted to. It's not like I didn't have a looming rent payment to think of, though.

"So…you're coming to Ground Zero with me, right?" she asked as we finally got to the door.

"Why not? Maybe there really will be more Taint there," I said.

Abby grinned as we stepped out onto the street. "Nobel Prize!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, and as usually paid no attention as everyone on our side of the street turned and stared at her like she was crazy. They were, but still.

She started talking about how she finally got the others to ditch their bass player who hadn't showed up for a gig in three months. I was going to congratulate her when I could get a word in edgewise with the slew of unkind words Abby used to describe the guy. But then I heard this weird sound, kind of a gurgling noise, and turned toward it just in time to see a man in tattered clothes and a three-day beard looking at me with blood-red eyes. Then he turned and ran into an alley.

"Abby!" I whispered.

"-even though Nat was like, 'where are we supposed to find another guy so soon'…what?"

"There!" I pointed.

"I don't see anything."

"I did! A Taint! I'm positive!" I reached into my bag and found the gizmo that had called Versa when I needed help before, and pushed the big raised button. Then I walked into the alley where I'd seen the guy disappear.

Abby was right behind me, and before I could even think to address the problem she had a little penlight out and was shining it into the dark. Sure enough, the guy was at the back of the alley, but he was on his knees pulling a manhole out of the ground with his bare hands. He jumped down without even acknowledging we were there.

"Is your buddy coming?" Abby whispered into my ear.

"I sure hope so, but I honestly don't know."

"But we're still going down there after him, right?"

"It's a little late for me to back out now," I said. She patted me on the back and I could tell without even looking that she was grinning.

"Lead on, brave adventurer!"

"Shut up! What if he hears us?" I said as I started down the whole after him.

"Oh yeah. Lead on, master spy."

We snuck through a narrow sewer tunnel, Abby keeping her light low so the guy was less likely to see it. I almost fell down from the smell of methane, but there was something else in the air too. Something like a cross between rotten meat and spilled gasoline.

I held my arms out to feel the walls on both sides as we went. Ahead I could just barely hear the guy's footsteps, but he was moving pretty fast. Either he knew we were behind him or there was something up ahead he was in a hurry to get to.

Then all of a sudden, I couldn't feel the walls anymore. Abby whipped the flashlight around and I could see we were in a big open room. Worse, I could see piles of bodies as high as my waist scattered all over. Abby held the light steady on one of them, black blotches covering its skin.

"What kind of rag does Alex think we're running indeed," I whispered to myself.

Then lights came on in the ceiling and we had to shield our eyes for a second. There was the man we'd followed down, standing by a big switch in front of another entrance at the far end of the room. "Come to join my collection?" he said, his face completely deadpan but his eyes seeming to burn in his face.

"You'll be the one joining it in a minute," Abby fired back with all the confidence in the world behind her words. I hope she meant Versa showing up.

He grimaced a little. "Take care of them before he gets here," he said, and two other men, wearing only tattered pants and with weird, yellow rashes covering their exposed skin, crawled out from behind him. Yeah, crawled. As in on all fours. They dug their feet into the floor, then jumped at us like huge frogs.

We moved out of the way, and before the one going for her had even landed Abby grabbed him by the arm and threw him into one of the corpse piles. The other one landed next to me but as soon as he did I kicked him in the head, and it jerked the other way. Before he could recover, because I was sure I hadn't put him down with that hit, I jumped on his shoulders as hard as I could, pushing my heels into them.

No, I probably couldn't handle anything as big or fast as a Taint, but I know a few things about protecting myself. Sorry if I never mentioned that.

I looked up for a second at the man as he watched us throw his friends around. He shut his eyes, and then the skin on his face started to peel back in thick strips. Underneath, it was brown and scaly. His jaws grew outward and the upper part of his head seemed to melt down into the rest of it. After a second he had the head of a giant lizard.

A long, thick tail grew from the base of his back, and as the skin ripped away from the rest of his body his fingers and toes lengthened until they were almost a foot long, the nails turning into stubby talons.

Under me, the same thing was happening to his buddy. I jumped off and kicked him on the chin as hard as I could. His head jerked back, but he recovered immediately, and fixed me with a now-beady eye. He opened his mouth and jumped at me, but somehow I got out of his way. Mostly out of his way. A couple of his teeth caught me on my shoulder and right away I felt like my arm was on fire. My legs gave out and I fell down. Pretty hard. I felt weak, but more than that, I felt sick. Nauseous. More than I ever remembered being sick as a kid.

The main lizard Taint stomped toward Abby, and I noticed that out of the three of them he was the only one still on his hind legs. Who'd ever been on his hind legs. He opened his mouth, and this, I swear, laser shot out at her. It was patches of different colors; blue, purple, red, black. Abby screamed, ducked under it and hit him in the stomach with her shoulder. He grabbed her by her sides, and tossed her all the way across the room.

That's it, I thought. We're dead. I'd known I could get into trouble covering this story, but I'd sort of hoped we could get in and back out without getting seen. Shows what I know, huh?

But before the lizard Taint could shoot his laser at Abby, or me, I heard someone running. From the entrance we'd used to follow him into the room. A second later their own ran in, and I saw it was a young-ish man with a worn face.

It was Altis.

The lizard Taint sighed. "I'd hoped I'd get to kill you first, Madeleine. I would've liked to have seen Altis's face when he realized he was too late…Attack!"

The other two lizards jumped at Altis, who put one of his crystals into his belt. "Transform!" he yelled.

"Wanderer," his belt said and the gold crest floated up from it and attached itself to his forehead and his armor appeared. He grabbed the two lizards by their necks, and Abby crawled over next to me now that they weren't paying attention to her anymore.

Altis tossed the other lizards across the room, and their leader opened his mouth and that laser with all its chaotic colors shot out and hit Altis right in the chest. He gasped and groaned, starting to fall to his knees, even though his armor wasn't even marked from the hit.

Then, through the pain and weakness I was feeling, it suddenly all made sense. The blotches on his victims, the nausea after one of the lizards got me with his mouth, and Altis being weakened instead of fried by that laser breath…

The Taint weren't just lizards, they were komodo dragons. Complete with mouths stewing with bacteria.

That wasn't all. Since when did Taint talk?

For that matter, since when were Taint after ME?

All of a sudden Altis jumped straight at Komodo Taint, as I'd started to think of him a few seconds before, and punched him on the jaw. Hard. So hard he landed flat on his back. One of the lesser Taint charged Altis, but he brought his fists behind his head then smashed them down onto the base of the Taint's neck. I winced at the snap that went up.

"Death is the greatest mercy," Altis whispered. Well, he whispered something. I figured that was probably it. The other one helped Komodo Taint back to his feet then picked up a dead body and threw it at Altis, who dodged it then ran at the two Taint. The lesser one ran at him too, just as Komodo Taint spewed his germ-laser again. It washed over his surviving underling and Altis at the same time.

"Altis Kick!" Altis yelled and jump-kicked the Taint that was charging him, knocking it back into Komodo Taint. The two Taint landed in a heap, but the smaller one didn't get up.

Altis kept going, but he was slowing down. Whatever was in Komodo Taint's attack was obviously getting to him. The Taint sprayed him again, and Altis was just a black shape inside the chaos of Komodo Taint's spray. He cocked back his arm, though, and then punched Komodo Taint. Even though the colors started to blur together, it was hard not to notice the black slime that exploded backward from Altis's fist.

I'd like to tell you what happened after that, but that's I got too sick to stay awake.

The first thing I remember after that was feeling like somebody'd cut open my skull and poured water inside, and it sloshed around as I rolled onto my stomach and tried to push myself up.

"You better take it easy," said a voice, and I recognized it as Altis's female friend. The one who'd made a valiant effort of trying to save me from Turtle Taint. "You're still not a hundred percent yet."

She was right, I still felt weak, but I settled for lying on my side and taking in the room. It was a small, drab hotel room with two beds. I was lying in one, and in the other was Altis. His eyes were shut, but his teeth were clenched and every couple seconds he'd groan in pain and writhe around weakly. Sitting on the edge of the bed and watching him nervously as his other friend. The one who'd been the most eager for me to leave.

And leaning against the wall, staring at me with tired eyes, was Abby. She sat down in the room's one chair. The other woman smiled just a little. "She was just standing there waiting for you to wake up for," she said, then checked her watch. "Going on thirteen hours."

"How long was I out?" I asked.

"Going on eighteen."

"God…how's Altis?"

The other man looked me in the eye, with no anger or resentment this time. "He's recovering, but we had to pump three times the amount of stuff into him that we gave you before he stabilized."

"I'm not really surprised," I croaked. "He took like three of those lasers from Komodo Taint."

He met my eyes again. "What surprises is me is you managed to hold on until we got there. We tested a couple of his other victims, and as far as we can tell they died in under half an hour of being exposed to his powers."

"She's no quitter," Abby said, but the woman ignored her and sat down on the bed next to me.

"Madeleine, stop me if I'm wrong, but…earlier you were tempted by the Taint, weren't you?" she asked.

"Were you guys following me or something?" I asked, but I was totally expecting a yes.

"The Taint are after you. That's why I was in that club pretending to be a waitress. Maybe the Turtle Taint was a fluke, but I wouldn't be surprised if he'd followed you in there too. I killed three others that had definitely been following you across town."

The man spoke up "They'd rather you not call attention to them. Silent invasion and all that stuff. But the Taint probably thought somebody like you could be useful to it, too. So after Faye stopped the first couple attempts on your life, it decided to convert you." "The point is, there's probably still a little Taint in your system," the woman, Faye probably, explained. "It blunted some of the effects of Komodo Taint's powers, just like it did with Altis."

"What?" I asked, not expecting that last part.

"Might as well tell her, Mike. We're obviously not getting rid of her," Faye said.

He gave me a look of exasperation, sighed and started to talk. "Once upon a time, there was a guy named Luke Quill. He lived in a small town, worked for the family business and didn't ask for much out of life. He had a beautiful girl who was crazy about him, for one thing.

"But she wasn't happy with living in a crummy little one-horse town. She wanted to go places, meet exotic people, be famous. But those aren't cheap ambitions, and there's not a lot of money to be had in a town the size of the one she came from. That's probably why the Taint found her so welcoming.

"One night when she came over to Luke's place after work, they started going through the motions. Kissing, hugging, whispering sweet nothings. But then she whispered about this thing that had changed her life. It had given her power she'd never thought she could have, even with dreams as big as hers. And because she was so in love with him, there was nothing she could do but share it with Luke."

He paused and clenched his fists. His voice was strained as he spoke, "But Luke didn't feel like he should take all those things he wanted but couldn't have. He could tell this wasn't his girlfriend anymore, it was a monster who wanted to absorb him just like it had the woman whose face she was wearing. He blew her away, but the Taint in her wasn't dead and it tried to take him over. It got into his body, but somehow-maybe because he'd already tried to fight it off, maybe it was too weak by that point to infect a new host-he didn't become a new Taint.

"But that doesn't mean he came through unchanged. He was a little stronger, a little faster, his perceptions a little sharper than a regular person's. That's not all." He pulled back the blanket covering Altis, allowing me to see a network of thick vein-like organs, colored a disturbing mixture of blue and dark green, through his bare chest.

"It so happened it also made him receptive to a new model of the augmentation system we use to become powerful enough to fight the Taint. One that makes him even more powerful than the rest of us, and able to use those crystals that give him more than one form. I wouldn't mind more like him, but the people at the top have told us in no uncertain terms they won't willingly create another Altis."

He leaned back, having finished his story. I decided to ask the obvious question. "If Altis is this Luke Quill guy, how do you know so much about what happened when the Taint tried to get him?"

"Because my name's Mike Quill. Luke Quill was my older brother."

I sat there for a second until my tired brain caught what exactly he'd just said.

"Was?"


	11. Chapter 11

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. But don't be afraid to ask.

Author's Note: I take your enjoyment seriously. If you've got an opinion on something I wrote, don't be afraid to share it, good or bad.

Mike sat there, avoiding my eyes. It seemed like a painful issue, but I was finally getting some answers out of these people. It was hard to back off even if it was the nice thing to do.

"What do you mean 'was'?" I asked as I peeled myself off the bed. I finally felt strong enough to sit up and stay up, and wanted to look a little dignified as I pressed the attack.

"Well, I-" Mike started to say, but stopped when Altis tapped him on the shoulder.

He sat up a little, then looked straight at me. More than ever, I felt like he could see into my mind and know exactly what was going on there. "Why are you telling them all these things?" he sighed. "Aren't they too involved already?"

"Do you think I'm going to get any less involved?" I said, getting indignant.

"Does the truth behind this matter more than your life?" he said.

I sat up all the way. My arms sagged at the shoulders. I was weak from getting blasted by Komodo Taint, from having the Taint almost take me over, but I was feeling like coming through that alive had made me stronger. Strong enough to face down Altis as he refused to let me in once again. "You said it's getting worse, and I ran into two monsters and almost got taken over by Taint in one day. Do you think even you guys can keep it quiet?"

Faye coughed. "She's got a point, Altis. The Taint are already after her, the safest thing we can do now's let her in."

Altis locked eyes with me again. His gaze was penetrating as ever, there was a weariness to his eyes this time. Maybe all the fighting was getting to him, maybe he was finally realizing he couldn't get rid of me after all. He sighed, fell back onto his bed, and was quiet for a while.

Then he sat up and took over telling the story.

"The experience that created Altis killed Lucas Quill," Altis said. "The last thing I can remember is waking up on a morgue slab not knowing who I was. Some people came in, explained that I'd been attacked by a monster and it had tried to take over my body. And, at least partially, it had succeeded.

"They took me somewhere, ran all kinds of tests on my body and my mind. As close as they could tell, somehow the fight between the Taint and Luke's mind resulted in both of them being wiped out, leaving a blank slate. The physiological changes made it so I could withstand a more powerful version of the augmentation system they were giving to their other agents," Altis suddenly clutched at his heart and gasped. I tried to get up and run over to see if he was okay, but he held up his other hand in a gesture for me to stop. "I've been helping them fight the Taint for about a year now. Mike joined as well in order to keep an eye on me, as he puts it."

"What motivated that, if I may ask?" I, well, asked.

"Madeleine," he said patiently. "The Taint is evil. It promises power, but gradually it consumes its host until there's nothing left of them but a shell filled with life essence of the Taint. It uses people to feed its power, and that's all that results from one of its deals. Do I need a reason beyond that?"

"He hasn't even got to the worst part of the change," Mike said. He might've been about to explain, but that was about when the front wall exploded inward. I was knocked on the floor by a piece of the wall that caught me in the chest, but I was probably lucky. All it did was wind me. Abby crawled behind the bed with me, hooking an arm around my back in case she had to drag me somewhere quickly.

I didn't have to guess the thing hovering outside the hole where the wall used to be was a Taint. What type it was, though, that surprised me.

At first it looked kind of like Komodo Taint, but on second glance its body was a lot thinner, its face narrower, and it only had stubby arms and legs. There were also the feathered wings, red tapering into yellow at their tips with dark blue crescents in the middle of each. All considered it looked like a giant snake with wings.

Automatically, Altis jumped out of his bed and I was still struck by how he was so skinny and wiry out of his armor. He already his crystal in hand and slipped it into his belt buckle. "Transform!" he yelled, and before his suit had even finished solidifying he was running toward the hole and throwing himself at the Taint.

Faye grabbed me by the arm and led me out through the hole. Altis had tackled the Taint but it threw him off easily even with its tiny arms. He was still weak from fighting Komodo Taint, no doubt. He replaced the crystal in his belt with the green one and slashed at it with his sword, but he was slower than I'd seen him and it flew right out of the way and rammed into his back with its head, and knocking him over. While he was down it sprayed a laser from its mouth like Komodo Taint, but the colors came out in straight streams like a rainbow. Altis was blown off his feet and his sword went flying from his hand.

Faye and Mike hauled the two of us behind some cars halfway down the block, but I wasn't convinced they'd offer much shelter if that thing came after us next. They flickered and transformed into their own armor before running toward the Taint, but it blew them into the air with its rainbow breath.

"I don't think they got a chance," Abby whispered, clenching her fists.

"What are you gonna do? Punch him on the nose?" I asked.

"Well, can you run yet?…hey, is that your other friend coming to save us?"

"What?" I said, then looked up as something flew by overhead. It looked like a person with giant bat wings, and for a second I was afraid it was another Taint coming to help the flying snake. Then I saw it had a battleaxe in one hand, and couldn't remember the last time I'd seen a Taint use a weapon.

The flyer came down lower and I could make out bits of indigo armor mixed with gray, and I had an answer for Abby. "Yeah, that's Versa!…I think."

Versa threw his axe at the snake Taint and cut a nasty hunk out of its wing. It hissed and shot its rainbow laser at him but he flew upwards out of the way. Altis seized the opportunity, grabbed his sword from where it landed and chopped through the Taint's other wing. Before I could see more Abby grabbed one of my arms and draped it over her shoulders, then started to run as fast as she could with me dragging behind her.

Rittersburg blurred around me as she lurched along. I felt better than when I'd been bitten by a mutant lizard, but I still couldn't imagine how Altis could get up and even try to fight off a Taint. Then I remembered those blue veins I could see through his skin.

"Abby, let's go back to my place, as fast as we can," I panted.

"That's not safe if they know who you are," Abby said. "Let's go to Jo's place. At least until you can stand up again."

She called a taxi without waiting for me to answer, and a minute later we were in the back of unpleasant-smelling car cruising away from the fight. If the driver had known there was one, we'd probably have been left to hobble to safety ourselves.

While we rode I had to assure Abby I was fine about fifty times. I could even get up and walk by the time we stopped in front of Jo's apartment building. We got up the front door and buzzed her apartment, and I pulled away from Abby to stand on my own two feet. Even if that was still a little bit of an effort for me.

"Who's there?" a male voice asked from the intercom.

"Chris?" Abby asked. "It's Abby Carver, I'm Madeleine's friend. Can she come in?"

"Sure," Chris replied, and the door buzzed, waiting for us to come in.

"What was with that 'she' stuff?" I asked grabbed the door and pulled it open.

"Maddy, of course I'm worried about you, but you'll be safe here and the band's going to be wondering where I am after I missed that show."

"Did you forget a flying snake came after us?"

"Of course not, but your friends will take care of it, won't they?"

"Abby-" I pleaded, but she kept going.

"I'm a big girl, Maddy. I'll be fine. You go up there and lay low til you're better. Go."

She stood there and watched until I went through the door, but as soon as it clicked shut she jogged down the street. I watched her go, then walked to the elevator and hit the up button. I knocked on Jo's door after I got to her floor, and combed my hair with fingers as fast as I could. When she opened the door I swear she gasped and covered her mouth, the first time I'd ever seen anyone actually do that.

"Madeleine?" she said like she honestly didn't recognize me. After I'd spent a lot of the past day in sewer tunnels and ducking monsters, I didn't really blame her. "Quick, come in!" she said, holding the door open

I did. Chris was there, but he didn't show any reaction at all to how I probably looked. Jo sat me down on the couch, then asked, "What's going on? You look like hell. Does it have something to do with those monsters?"

"Yeah," I panted. "One attacked me, a flying snake. I think they're after me for the story I'm researching."

"Is that so?" Chris asked calmly. "What exactly have you found out about them, Madeleine? Do you know where they come from, or how you can kill one?"

I shook my head. "No, but I've been after them so long, maybe they think I'm getting close to the answers."

"Do you think you are? Just what _do _you know about those monsters?" Chris sat down across from me to look intently into my eyes. They were as ordinary as anything else about him, but I didn't like the way he was asking.

"I know they're hunted by these guys on motorcycles, but I don't really know what their story is either," I told him.

"Could knowing that be why you rejected the offer that was made to you?" he said. I could almost feel the temperature in the apartment drop.

"What the hell are you talking about?" I said, trying to play dumb. I knew exactly what offer he meant. I suddenly knew exactly why my sister's life had improved after she started seeing this guy.

"Don't degrade yourself like that, Madeleine," Chris said. "You may not be the smartest or most persuasive person in the world, but you're persistent. Most of the subjects we find are sad examples of humanity who only accept what we offer because they've got nowhere to go but up. If you'd accepted, you could've been more than most."

I stole a glance at Jo, and my stomach tightened as I saw her just standing there with a placid smile on her face.

"Now Madeleine," Chris said, just a bit more forcefully than before. "I think you know something about where the hunters come from, and you'd better tell me what it is unless you want me to do something terrible, to your sister."

"But she's one of you Taint now, isn't she?"

"That part of what she is now will live on, Madeleine, but I can easily guarantee the human part of her won't if you don't tell me what I need to know."

I glanced over again, and Jo's expression hadn't changed at all as Chris talked about killing her. Was there even anything left of my sister to hear him, I wondered?

Chris clenched his fist and the smile disappeared from Jo's face. She pushed her fingers to her forehead and groaned, then she tossed back her head and screamed. Her arms had started to twist and her fingers bent at impossible angles. The apartment filled with a horrendous noise of cracking bone. Jo opened her eyes, and they were completely black. The same as the black fluid I could see flowing through her veins even through her skin. He released his fist and Jo gasped before she doubled over, catching herself on the back of the couch.

He looked at me coldly. "You don't want me to do that again, do you? Start talking and make it good."

Chris reached out to grab me by the shoulder, but I grabbed him the forearm, put my other hand below his shoulder and flipped him over my head. He landed on his back in front of the big window looking onto the street, and I was surprised to hear him groan in pain. I was about jump over the couch to attack him again before he could recover, but hands closed around my neck from behind.

"Don't! You! Touch him!" Jo screamed and tightened her grip on me. I gasped and tried to pull her arms loose, but she was too strong and I couldn't get any leverage. Chris got up off the floor, and his eyes were the empty black that Jo's were. He reached out for me and his skin started to peel back.

Then I heard a crash and instead of choking me she was yanking back on my neck. Then she'd let go and I heard another crash. I looked back and saw she'd hit the other wall hard enough to leave a dent. Standing next to me, out of his armor, was Versa. Next to him, also out of armor but with one of his crystals in hand, was Altis.

"Boy am I glad to see you guys," I gasped.

"Thank Versa. He had a hunch and checked these two out this morning," Altis said.

"What?" I gasped, but Jo was on her feet and Chris has finished changing. His skin had changed into dark green scales, and his face had turned into a giant snake's, with huge fangs and a hood sprouting from the back.

Jo got up and started to change too. I choked as her fingers fell off one by one and her skin unraveled from her arms as they turned into two long, scaly tentacle-like things. Her hair felt into ragged clumps at her feet before her head rippled and lengthened into the head of another snake. Unlike the winged one that'd attacked them before, Jo and Chris had thick arms and legs, neither of which I felt like letting close to me.

"Transform," Altis and Versa said together, loading their crystals into their belts.

"Wanderer."

"Outlaw."

I got over to a corner as fast I could to be out of the way. I can take care of myself pretty well, but I was happy to leave the monsters to the professionals.

Chris, or Cobra Taint as I found it easier to think of him, jumped at Altis who grabbed him by the shoulders. Cobra Taint tried to sink his six-inch fangs into Altis's shoulder. Altis juked out of the way and Cobra Taint missed his shoulder, then chopped Cobra Taint across the back so hard I still can't believe how he didn't just break the monster in half from that one hit.

I heard Versa yell and looked over to see how he was doing, and he battered Jo with a punch to her head then kicked her in the side from the other direction. She tried to grab him with her tentacle-like arms, but he was faster and ducked low then pummeled her stomach with punches. She hissed and tried to smash her arms down on top of him, but Versa rolled away and they smashed the floor instead.

Versa vaulted off the ground, ricocheted off the wall and aimed his fist at Jo's head. When he was still five feet away she whipped her arms at him again. This time, they stretched out, I mean literally stretched until they were twice as long as before. Her arms wrapped around him and pinned his arms and legs. That was when I realized what she'd become. A boa constrictor.

She slammed Versa against the floor and made a crater. She swung him at the wall next and smashed him right through it. Constrictor Taint pulled him back and brought him behind her like she was about to smash him into the ceiling next, but he closed the drawer in his belt just as I noticed the crystal he was inserting was red.

"Blood," his belt announced and his armor turned red just before his body turned into a pulsating red mass that flowed through Constrictor Taint's coiled arms. He reformed, then pulled out another crystal and slid it into his belt.

"Strangler," it said. The shape floated up and replaced the one on his mask, and his armor turned a poisonous shade of yellow. Constrictor Taint stretched her arms out to grab him again but he jumped over them and pointed his left hand at her. A thick cord shot from the inside wrist and wrapped around her neck. She hissed in a way that sounded like a gasp and her arms went limp. The cord retracted into Versa's gauntlet, and once she was in reach he gave Constrictor Taint a kick that sent her flying across the room.

On the other side of the room Altis was wrestling with Cobra Taint, gripping the monster by his jaws. Cobra Taint clawed and punched Altis on the chest and Altis's grip on his mouth slipped. The monster shot forward and sank his fangs, as long as the biggest knife you ever saw, into Altis's chest. I gasped, but Altis whipped an arm to his belt, gripped his green crystal and pushed it into his belt. "Heaven," it said, then the thin winged shape lifted from his belt, attached his forehead and for a split second the whole apartment was lit up green.

Cobra Taint hissed and wheeled back from whatever Altis gave off as he changed, and before the monster recovered Altis had swung his sword in a vicious two-handed slash and cut into Cobra Taint's neck. The monster jerked away from the blade and the scales fell away from his right forearm. Underneath was a long, sharp-looking blade of what looked like bone. It curved up a little at the tip, like a scimitar. He slashed his new weapon at Altis, who ducked underneath it then somersaulted to one side so he Cobra Taint between him and the window. Altis jumped forward and tackled him through it. They landed on the street and dueled back and forth. Cobra Taint made wild slashes with his arm-blade while Altis dodged and parried, delivering a quick slash here and there then dodging back before Cobra Taint could hit him in return.

My attention returned to the other fight as one of Constrictor Taint's flailing arms smashed into the floor a few feet away from me. The cord from Versa's glove was wrapped around it at the shoulder, and tightened until the arm ripped clean off. Constrictor Taint hissed in what was probably a scream.

Versa lashed the cord around Constrictor Taint's neck this time and the cord tightened. The monster who'd been my sister once thrashed around and stretched out the arm she still had to batter Versa's chest. He grunted but stayed on his feet and kept tightening the cord around his opponent's throat. Finally she croaked and slumped onto the floor. The Taint's skin started to lose its consistency and turn back into black sludge.

"Hidden Reclamation," Versa said and the black slime flowed into his belt. I looked away before it was finished. I'd seen enough already. After a second I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked up to see Versa kneeling there. "I'm sorry," he said.

Right then there was another hiss-scream from outside. I looked out the window, and wasn't surprised to see Altis standing there with his sword plunged into Cobra Taint's heart. He pulled the blade out, spilling black slime onto the street. Before Cobra Taint had even hit the ground his body had started to melt too, and Altis wasted no time in claiming that unholy sludge. Altis jumped to the ledge outside the window and climbed back in.

He pulled the crystal out of his belt and his armor flickered away. "Are you all right, Madeleine?" he asked, no inflection in his voice.

"I'm all in one piece, if that's what you mean," I said, not entirely hiding a sob. "What are you doing here?"

Versa pulled the crystal out of his belt and changed back to normal too. The overconfidence, the wisecracking demeanor was gone from his face. "Like I said, I'm sorry. I was checking on people you'd talked to, and right before I showed up to save Altis's bacon I found out your sister was a Taint." His eyes made a whirring noise as if for emphasis.

Altis gave him a hard look. "We haven't had time to check yet, but we think the flying snake we fought might have been another tenet in this building. Cobra Taint was probably trying to establish an army of snake Taint from the people here. It appears it was just those three, though."

"Yeah," I said bitterly. "You guys got here just in time."

"Madeleine, please try to understand," Altis said defensively. "The Taint's a parasite. Once it takes control of a host it won't let them go unless they're dead. If we'd known about Cobra Taint before she was converted, something could've been done. As it is, removing the Taint and keeping the host alive is a capability we just don't have."

"Then I weep for the ones you protect," a snide voice called out. It sounded so familiar, just like when Komodo Taint had talked. "You really think it was some pitiful human convert who was responsible for laying the groundwork for an army?"

Little bits of darkness seemed to flow out of every shadow in the room to gather in a spot behind Altis and Versa. Then…something erupted from it.

It was shaped like a person, but weren't most Taint? If it was supposed to be like an animal, though, I had no idea what. Its arms and legs were gray and mottled and its torso was made of what looked like the black slime of the Taint hardened into a rock-like substance. It had a jutting formation for a head, with a muzzle like a wolf's made of that gray stuff sticking out of it. Seeming to float above the muzzle were two balls of red light. It looked down at the there of us, and snarled.


	12. Chapter 12

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. But don't be afraid to ask.

Author's Note: I take your enjoyment seriously. If you've got an opinion on something I wrote, don't be afraid to share it, good or bad.

The snarl hadn't even finished before the thing, whatever it was, pointed its hands at us and my vision turned green as some force hurled the three of us through the window Altis had devastated minutes before.

Someone wrapped their arms around me as we fell. The next thing I knew I'd landed on top of them, and I was amazed that all that happened was having the wind knocked out of me. My savior groaned and slid out from under me, and I'll admit I was kind of surprised to see it was Versa. He pulled me up and in the same motion yanked me out of the way before the monster growled and jumped out the window after us. The asphalt cracked under its feet as it landed.

"Get her out of here!" he yelled and pushed me toward Altis. Versa had a crystal clutched in one hand and shoved it into his belt. The monster held up one hand and its palm was already glowing green. The gold crest floated from Versa's belt but I didn't see what happened next. Altis pulled me down the street and sat me roughly on the back of his armor-plated bike. He jumped on the front and within what seemed the second we were roaring away.

I looked back and saw a green flash even over the roof of a building behind us. "I don't get that guy," I thought then realized I'd said it out loud.

"He's always been a mystery," Altis said without turning around.

"You going to unpack that for me?" I asked. He didn't. He didn't say anything. It was just as well, I probably wasn't in much of a state to listen to detailed explanations. The reason my depressed sister had turned her life around was evil black slime. I vaguely remember wondering what would've happened if it had gotten me too after all. If maybe I would've been made into part of that snake Taint army back there. I probably would've ended up impaled on Altis's sword just like Cobra Taint. Before Cobra Taint did.

We rode like that for a while, not saying anything until the buildings started to get lower, older and more in need of fresh paint. After a bit I could see actual trees as we got near the highway out of town.

"We're skipping town?" I yelled. Altis nodded. "What about your friends? What about Versa?"

"They went on ahead," he replied. "And Versa's not my friend."

"You're not worried he might kill that thing and get his hands on whatever makes it tick?"

Altis did something surprising. He scoffed. "Versa can't beat that thing. It has energy levels higher than any Taint I've ever seen."

"So it was a Taint," I prompted, but Altis didn't answer that time. It was just as well, I was too drained after seeing Versa kill my sister to keep trying to get him to open up. Besides, I had a feeling he wasn't planning on just dropping me off a safe distance away this time.

The rest of the trip was uneventful except for when I had Altis pull over so I could get a quick burrito. I'm not one of those reporters who can live on coffee and cigarettes, chasing sirens into the small hours, unfortunately. Altis surprised me again when he ordered one too, then finished it in two bites.

"You burn a lot of calories killing monsters, I bet," I guessed.

"It's what I do."

"I think I saw that once or twice, yeah."

He gave me an impatient look-since when did he emote?-and waved me back onto the bike. We rode a while out into the country and after he looked around to make sure nobody else was there, pulled off onto a dirt road. After a minute it led to a rundown old farmhouse.

"This is where you guys hide out?" I asked.

"One place," he answered. He drove around the back, covered the bike with a tarp and opened the back door for me. A gentleman. Even with far I'd come in this investigation, I still knew so very little about what these people were like behind the mask.

Inside, the house was a lot like most quaint country houses you see in old movies. The wallpaper in the kitchen looked like it had been hung thirty years ago. The stove was ancient but looked like it could've stood up to machine gun fire. Overall the place was kind of dingy, but there wasn't a speck of dust anywhere.

"Who's there?" Mike Quill's voice yelled from the next room.

"It's us," Altis called back.

"Did you bring the girl with you, Altis?"

"She can probably answer for herself if he did," I said.

Mike grumbled and I heard a chuckle that sounded like Faye's. "Come on in, Madeleine. As far as we know there aren't any Taint this far from civilization. Not many potential hosts, you know."

I followed the voices into a sparsely furnished living room. Mike was walking out through another door as I came in, but Faye was sitting in a tan couch that looked like it had been around the block. Altis went out through the same door Mike had, but Faye tapped the spot behind her. I sat down.

"What are we doing here?" I asked before the rush of stale air from the seat cushions had faded.

"We'll wait until Altis reports in what he and Versa did after they split off. If the Taint are really starting to get organized like Versa thinks, we probably won't be out of Rittersburg for long," Faye explained.

"I'm kind of surprised he's giving you guys information like that, what with you two representing different interest groups," I said. "Guess even he doesn't a lot of people to die either."

Faye shrugged. "Barely met the guy myself, can't claim to know how he thinks."

"He tells me it's so his people can figure out how to control evolution."

She laid back in her seat and sighed. "That's a noble goal, isn't it? It might even work if the Taint wasn't alive, and getting smarter and stronger by leaps and bounds every time we look away for too long."

I didn't like the sound of that. "It is?"

"Uh-huh," she confirmed. "It used to be we could find the Taint and kill them pretty easy by ourselves. But then they started getting more powerful, and we got Altis and started sending him after the most powerful Taint we found. The ones we've been fighting these last couple weeks though…they're the scariest yet. Plus, it used to be one, maybe two per city. Now they're popping up everywhere. I'm not sure we can handle them all."

"Where does the Taint, the actual living slime I mean, come from? If there aren't any Taint outside the state, it has to be somewhere pretty close."

Faye looked at me and sighed. "That's what we're hoping, but honestly we don't know. The Taint's stealthy until it at least takes a host. It's been getting even sneakier lately, if that wasn't the only group being built which I hope to God it was."

"I doubt it," I told her. "Not if these things have leaders. I mean, that thing we ran into seemed like their leader."

She gave me a confused look. "What thing? What leader?"

"Oh, Altis probably didn't get a chance to tell you yet, did he? There was something else back at my sister's apartment. I'm not really sure what it was, since a lot of it looked like it was made of black rock. Or hardened black slime, maybe. Last I saw, Versa was fighting it so we could get away."

"That's just great," Faye sighed again.

"He also said something about it having energy levels higher than he'd ever seen. But…all he did was look at it."

She leaned over and looked me in the eye, and for the first time I noticed just how artificial it looked. There was even a little "whir" noise as the pupil traveled to meet mine.

"They give you these before they give you a power suit," Faye explained. "You can see if someone's been taken over by Taint, and how strong they are, and things like that."

I recoiled a bit. "But are those your…actual eyes?"

"As close as I'll ever get again"

"Uhllaugh," was something close to the sound I made. Faye laughed.

Someone coughed and we both looked up to see Mike and Altis standing there. "If you two are finished with your girl bonding, we should get going. Apparently we're taking our new friend back home to meet the family."

I looked up at Altis. "Does that mean I'm riding with you again." He turned toward the door to the kitchen and left without waiting for me. I got up to follow him but Mike put a hand on my shoulder.

"He's not going the same place we are," Mike said, strangely quietly.

After they spent a couple minutes packing up they went out to the back and brought their own bikes out from the rundown little garage. Faye motioned for me to get on behind her and again I was blasting down the highway away from Rittersburg.

I was expecting them to keep going to the next big city, but they pulled off the main road after about an hour. We drove through a small town whose name I made a point not to remember in case the Taint came after me for information again, but still they didn't stop. We were about twenty minutes out of town when they pulled down a dirt track that ran through some trees. Suddenly we just stopped, and Mike got off his bike. He and Faye pulled out two weird machines that looked sort of like TV remotes except they were bright blue and only had three buttons on them. They both pushed the one in the middle at the same time.

There was a loud mechanical grinding and a metal box, big enough for all of us and the bikes to fit inside, lifted out of the ground just off the road. Inside were two people wearing armor like Faye and Mike's, but a dull gray. They sized us up, and turned to Faye. "This is the one who's been following Altis?" one asked in a flat masculine voice.

"This is the unflappable Miss Moore," Faye nodded.

The guard jerked his thumb toward the elevator, and Faye and Mike walked their bikes inside while I just walked. Once all five of us were inside the elevator sank into the ground again. After a minute it stopped outside of a checkpoint. Faye and Mike waved at the guy sitting in the booth, then they dropped off their bikes and led me through hallway after hallway. I get the feeling they were taking me to wherever we were going through the most circuitous way possible, just in case.

After a while we entered what looked like mission control at a space base. There were a row of manned computers facing one wall with what looked like topographic displays on their monitors. I could see little blips near the centers of various towns, and couldn't help noticing the one in the middle of Rittersburg was a lot bigger than the others. The people at the computers chattered into headsets, but they were too far away for me to catch much.

Then a woman in a long white coat came out from a side door. Despite the white hair pulled into a bun at the back of her head and the wrinkles forming on her face, she gave me a look of authority more severe than I'd ever gotten from my boss or either of my parents. I felt an urge to salute her.

"Madeleine, wasn't it?" she said in a soft, tired voice.

"That's me."

"You're something else, you know that? Seeing the things you have, most people would try to find the quickest way off the planet," she said.

"Thanks, I think."

She turned to Mike and Faye. "You two, go get some rest."

"Where's Altis, if I may ask?" I interrupted.

"He's picking up an experimental weapon," she said, then waved toward the door, and Mike and Faye left. Then she reached out and shook my hand. "Now for a real introduction. Hello, you must be Madeleine. I'm Gloria Song, and welcome to my little operation. I'm sure you have questions, and we'll do our best to answer them. After you've made me certain promises."

I nodded a little. "Let me guess, I have to keep anything I learn here to myself."

"Parts of what you'll learn, but the first thing I was going to ask is whether you might be willing to help us do our work," Gloria explained.

I must've looked interested, because she smiled faintly. "You see Madeleine, this group of mine reports to no one outside these walls. All of the people who help hunt down Taint are volunteers, most of them people who'd been threatened by the Taint. It takes a special kind of person to wear the armor, though."

"And what do you need out of a recruit?"

"Courage and self-sacrifice are the main things, of course," she explained. "But also physical prowess, quick-thinking, and perhaps most important of all the ability to take a life to stop the Taint from taking more."

"You're asking if I'm willing to be one of your fighters like Altis, right?"

She nodded. "More like Altis than you might think." "Excuse me?" Gloria looked me right in the eye. "We don't go any further until you tell me you're able to make that call, Madeleine."

I sighed and shut my eyes. Earlier that day my sister had turned into a monster thanks to some kind of living filth. Up until that point I had thought the Taint was just some semi-sentient parasite trying to take over human beings so that it could become stronger. Now, it seemed like something was guiding it. Something with some higher purpose.

Knowing that, it was logical to assume it was choosing its victims deliberately. Could I live with myself if I killed someone who'd been deliberately marked by whatever it had been that Versa had bought us time to escape? Someone who'd probably committed no crime except being weak enough to be tempted by power? Someone who was only human?

"I need some time to think about this. I don't know if I can pull that trigger for you."

She nodded sadly. "I'll have someone take you wherever you want. We'll be in touch."

"I'd like to go back to Rittersburg. It'll help me stay focused on the decision."

Gloria just nodded.

A car with glistening black windows was waiting for me in a little garage where two guys in gray suits escorted me after I finished talking to Gloria. I got into the back, where there was divider like in the back of a limousine, except I didn't find anything to lower it in my part of the car. As a result, the ride home was a quiet one.

It was dark by the time the car stopped. I hadn't told them where exactly to take me, but the last place I was expecting was a nightclub near the seamier side of town. Still, I'd heard of places with way scarier names than "Razor's Edge."

The driver rolled down the window just enough so I could hear him say, "Your friend's playing here tonight." Then he pulled away from the curb. I shrugged, handed the bouncer a couple bucks for the cover and went in.

Despite what the name of the club implied, most of the people drinking beers in the dingy room past the front doors were clean-cut college kids. There two or three tables where harder-looking types were sitting, but they didn't look like much after three mutant snakes tried to kill me in the same day. On the stage Abby's fingers were flying over the neck of an electric guitar as some scruffy guy I didn't recognize wailed words I didn't understand.

I wandered over to the bar and tried to think of the name of a mainstream beer I liked. I'm picky about my alcohol, what can I say? The bartender seemed happy to ignore me as he kept chatting up a frizzy-haired blonde lady in a tube top as I sat down. As I looked for a brand name that didn't sound too bad, I wasn't entirely surprised anymore to realize someone was sitting on the stool next to me who hadn't been a second before.

"Your friend's good. She's really holding herself back playing with a bunch of B-list punks like those guys," he said.

"Hello, Versa."

He set pressed a bottle into my hand below the bar, and I looked down to see the familiar of Kirin draft. Somehow it was even cold.

"Come on, sweetie," he said. "Let's go somewhere we can talk a little more privately." He gently herded me toward an isolated table and waited until I sat down before seating himself. I hadn't noticed in the dimmer light at the bar, but he had a black eye, gauze taped to one cheek and four long tears like claw marks on running down one sleeve of his coat.

"Just wanted to let me know you're okay?" I asked after he graciously opened the bottle with his thumb.

"And try to make up for what happened today," he said and sipped his own cool one. "I know this must not sound terribly convincing coming from me, but I'd like to offer you the chance to join my outfit."

"That's a coincidence," I said.

"No, that's exactly why I was asked to extend this offer," he said and gave me a frank look. "Altis and his friends are getting desperate. If they haven't made you an offer yet, I have no doubt they will soon."

I just shrugged, not wanting to tip my hand to him. He kept going. "I work for the government, you understand. If you accepted, you'd have the support of the entire country if you got in trouble."

"Tell me something," I said. He nodded for me to continue.

"Is there any way to separate the Taint from the person it's taken over, besides killing them?"

He sighed. "Miss Moore, we've looked. We've tried a hundred different ways. It just refuses to let go until its host it completely killed. My backers gave up a little after Altis's did."

"And what exactly do you want me to do? I keep running into you but I've never seen any of those other guys fighting on your side."

"Investigative stuff, mostly. They're holding off on making more fighters until they can safely duplicate the biological condition that makes the system Altis and I use."

"I see," I took a long drink. "You're a brave guy, assuming you let Taint into your body by choice."

"I feel like a pretty brave guy for doing what I do, yeah."

"Yeah, I guess so," I said. Abby's band finished their song, and a relative quiet filled the club.

"So…what do you think?" Versa asked.

"I think I've been sitting on the sidelines long enough," I told him. "And as far as I'm concerned, as long as the Taint's around it'll always be dangerous. Thanks anyway."

He didn't freak out, or get mad at me. He just nodded, and stood up. "If that's the case, I wish you the best of luck. But you can't expect favors from me the way you used to."

"We all have to leave the nest eventually."

He sniggered at that. "You're growing up so fast, Miss Moore. It seems like only yesterday when I was having you impersonate a cop." Then he turned and walked out the door.

Someone else sat down at my table a minute later, a beer in each hand. "Hey, wasn't that your other buddy? Versa?"

I finished my beer before I answered. "Not anymore."


	13. Chapter 13

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. But don't be afraid to ask.

Author's Note: I take your enjoyment seriously. If you've got an opinion on something I wrote, don't be afraid to share it, good or bad.

I was still bleary as I threw on the clothes I wore the day before, grabbed my bag and stumbled out of Abby's apartment. I hadn't been back to my own place since the day I'd watched my sister turn into a snake monster. It occurred to us that if the Taint were after me they might know who my friends were, but for some reason or other they hadn't done anything. Maybe they were regrouping. Maybe they figured I wasn't the real threat after all. Maybe it was because that had only been a couple days ago.

Maybe it was because of what I was waking up in the small hours of the morning to investigate. I waved down a taxi as fast as I could and asked the driver to follow the fading police sirens. If there were sirens this time, then it was probably still in progress. I'd never been first on the scene when something happened, even if you don't count the cops.

The sound of a motorcycle passing the taxi seized my attention for a second, but the only one I saw on the road was going the other way. By the time the taxi stopped the sirens had died away and the yellow and black tape told me the investigation was already underway. A sheet had been laid out over what looked sort of like a body in the middle of the sidewalk. Sort of, which meant a Taint had probably been there recently.

I walked up to the first officer I saw. "How many is that this week?" I asked as diplomatically as I could manage, given the hour.

"Eight, I think," he answered.

"Any idea what happened?"

"You a reporter or something?"

"That's what I like to tell people.

The cop sighed. It wasn't the first time I'd provoked a reaction like that from a cop. "It looks sort of like the guy's guts were ripped open. Like with someone's bare hands. But it was somebody with claws."

"Mind if I take a look?" I asked hopefully.

"Lady, the coroner isn't even here yet. No. Stay on that side of the tape."

"When are you expecting him?"

"Stay on that side of the tape," he repeated, harsher this time. His eyes kept darting back to the sheet and he shifted from one foot to the other as he waited, though. Whatever he'd seen underneath there had probably done a good job of scaring him. Having seen the kinds of things responsible for it myself, I didn't blame him.

"Look, officer," I said gently. "I've run into the things that commit those kind of killings. They're called Taint, and yeah, they're as vicious as anything you ever saw. I'm just trying to warn people."

He shifted from one foot to the other again. He mumbled something I didn't quite make out.

"I'm sorry?" I asked.

"Maybe you shouldn't," he said, just loud enough for me to understand him this time. "Maybe it'll just scare people into making things worse."

"Maybe it's too late to pretend this isn't happening," I said. "How many killings have there been? What's the official line, a coyote's in town or something? Kind of unbelievable animal control's having a hard time catching it."

"You still can't cross the tape," he told me. "Sorry lady, just doing my job."

"Me too."

So in conclusion, it seemed this was the work of a Taint like all the other killings I'd been investigating. I'd never heard of them committing so many killings in such a short period of time. And they were all over town, which was likely to mean one thing. They were multiplying, and doing it fast.

Right about then, my cell rang. "Hello?"

"Hello, Madeleine," said a crisp female voice.

"Gloria Song?"

"Good memory," she chuckled. "Have you thought any about my offer?"

"Uh-huh. The Taint are getting worse."

"Yes, they are."

I took a breath. "I'm ready to help. I'm ready to end this."

"You have the potential to be a bigger help than you may realize, Madeleine."

"So what do we do next?" I asked.

"I'll send someone to get you," she replied, and hung up.

A couple hours later a glistening black car, just like the one that'd taken me back to Rittersburg from that little secret base I'd visited the last time I'd had a run-in with Altis, pulled up outside Abby's apartment building. She'd come back a little while before, worn out from playing to the night crowd at some dive in the center of town, and took the shortest possible route to her bed. I wrote her a note about where, basically, I was going and telling her to think about moving somewhere else, then hurried downstairs and went up to the car.

This time, someone was waiting in the back seat when I opened the door to get in. Sitting there, looking surprisingly well-rested considering the time and her own admission that the Taint were getting more numerous, was Gloria Song.

"How've you been feeling, Madeleine?" she asked after the car had pulled into the street again.

"Kind of worried about how many Taint incidents there've been," I admitted. I was aware it might not have been in my best interests to show fear to someone asking for the kind of help Gloria was. Lying to someone asking for that kind of help seemed like the bigger disservice.

"Understandable, but I meant how you've been feeling physically."

That surprised me a little. "Fine, why? None of the monsters hurt me."

"Because my dear, whether or not you realize it, you've been touched by the Taint. Not as deeply as Altis, but once it's in your system, there's no way to remove every trace. And that, I think, could be of great help to us."

She didn't have to explain further. I'd already heard how being exposed to the Taint made Altis capable of using a more powerful suit than those of his teammates. From how he talked about his condition I obviously hadn't been touched to the same degree, but all the same a black blob had tried to crawl under my skin.

I nodded. "What do we do first?"

"We get you up to spec," she said. "I'm afraid I'll have to rush you through the training, though. The way things are going I have a feeling we'll need all the help we can get, as soon as we can get it."

"Just point me as soon as we get there."

Gloria chuckled. "I wish it was that simple. We've got to make some compatibility tests, just to make sure you're as receptive as I think. I hope we can get those out of the way tonight and get you started on your regimen tomorrow."

"You know, I still have a job to do. The one that got me into this in the first place," I reminded her.

"Ah yes, and you'd like to know just how much you can reveal. Not the obvious, of course, but everything we know about the Taint is yours to reprint."

"Any suggestions on what to say about how I learned all that?"

"Tell the truth. That Altis and his friends gave you all the information they have on the Taint to warn people of the danger." So saying she pulled out a manila folder and handed it to me.

I spent the rest of the ride studying the various reports inside, of what the group, who Gloria told me have a name to make finding them harder, knew about the Taint. There wasn't much I hadn't heard by word of mouth from her agents already, except that they'd been fighting the Taint since about two years before I started chasing the story. The frequency of their appearances had been climbing steadily since then, as had their power. As I read on the number of casualties in the incident reports got alarmingly high.

"Tell me something," I looked up at her. "How did this group of yours get started?"

She sighed and looked at the impenetrable window on her side for a minute before she answered me. "I held a certain office and heard about the first time Taint appeared. The government hushed it up and started studying the remains they'd managed to collect in order to find a way to harness the instantaneous mutation the Taint causes its host. I was…upset that such a loss of life was being ignored, and worse, that they were ignoring the analysis that the Taint wasn't something that could be controlled. So I struck out on my own to deal with this."

I nodded. "That's what Versa told me his bosses want the Taint for."

Gloria nodded too. "That's because they found out what I was up to, and set him up to become one of my agents. I don't imagine that's news to you, though. It's such a shame he was only after information on the Taint, even Altis was never as ferocious a fighter as he could be. I suppose I should've noticed that sooner."

"Altis is pretty dedicated to what he does," I said.

"It's all he's got," Gloria said.

I let the matter lie. My second wind hadn't quite kicked in yet. After a while the car stopped and the doors opened and we were inside Gloria's secret little bunker. She had the driver take me somewhere, somewhere I gave my clothes to a bunch of lab-types. I spent hours letting them run scans on me, taking bodily samples and all kinds of other tests on my physiology. I don't think I was giving Wonder Woman anything to worry about, but I remember them telling me I had a grip strength something like four times the average woman my age. The average woman my age in good shape. No way did I have that kind of muscle before.

After that, they showed me what was apparently my bunk. The room was barely big enough for two people to stand in, but it had a bed and a shower and at the moment I wasn't asking for a lot more. I settled down in my personal little closet and saw it was eight in the morning just as I drifted off.

The next thing I knew, I was back in Rittersburg, outside the rundown office where I was trying to make my name as a journalist. I had no idea what I was doing there, considering the sky was dark and if you squinted hard enough you could make out stars through the veil of smog. I don't know how you think most newspapers work, but nobody ever worked late at the Graphic. Not even when we finally had a story as juicy as mine.

I started the walk back to my apartment, then remembered I was worried that monsters were staking it out and started the walk to Abby's apartment. Then I remembered it was way too far from the office to walk and walked a few blocks to the nearest busy street instead.

In the back of my mind I was vaguely aware I should probably be more aware of my surroundings. There were monsters aorund around, and it was more active at night. Probably most active in the parts of town where there weren't many people willing to help out someone in trouble. And the part of town where the Graphic kept its offices wasn't the nicest place to be after dark. Part of why none of us ever pulled late nights there.

Still, I made it to a bright enough street where I knew taxis stopped. I waved one over and got in the back. I hadn't even started telling the driver where I wanted to go before I realized I stepped in something wet.

"What the hell-" I started to say, then the driver turned to face me.

"Something wrong lady?" he growled. I recoiled and gasped. His eyes were two flecks out light in his face, and he had a wolf-like muzzle instead of a mouth, just like the Taint leader. The entire taxi turned into a blob of growling-yes, growling-black Taint slime that jumped at me. I screamed as the sticky black tidal wave crashed down on me…

…and then I heard an obnoxious buzzer going off right over my bed. I squeezed my eyes shut before I was alert enough to remember there were no windows in the room they gave me.

I stumbled to the door and pushed the button in the wall beside it. It slid into the wall and standing there was Faye McGee. "Do you have any idea what time it is, young lady?" she smirked.

"After ten. At night. Can I help you with something?"

"Yeah, after we finish your orientation. Come on," she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. We went through the halls to a big gym with mats laid out on the floor. As soon as Faye was on one, she went into a martial arts stance. "Come at me."

I had an idea where this was going. I did what she said, I ran at her, but when she feinted to the side and tried to grab me by the arm I grabbed one of hers and we stood there deadlocked.

"Okay, I can see you've got a decent background already," Faye said, but didn't stop trying to flip me. After a minute, she managed it. She was good, the landing knocked the wind out of me.

We kept sparring until quarter to one. I wasn't the experienced monster fighter, so I don't have to tell you who scraped themselves off the mat more often, but by the time Faye called a stop she looked like she'd be sporting a few new bruises too.

"Not bad for your first day," Faye panted with a dazzling smile. "I wish I'd done nearly that well the first time they had me in here for training."

"How long before I get my suit?" I asked.

"Normally they want you to have at least a month of training, but they tell me that you're only waiting for your belt to get finished."

I tilted my head at her. "Why? Don't you guys have a bunch of them sitting around for new recruits?"

"Yes, we do, but this one's special."

"So you stopped just so you could congratulate me?" I said.

"Oh no, we'll be at this all night. But you've earned a break," she smiled.

"Okay, see you back here in…five?" I replied, and realized was smiling without meaning to. I was getting to like Faye. She didn't seem much like the typical stonewalling secret agent Mike acted like. In fact she was the only person I'd met to be involved with either party battling the Taint to be, well, personable at all. That made me sort of resent the Taint. Who know what would happen to us before we found out where they came from and how to stop them?

If they were even something that could be stopped.

I walked to a drinking fountain in one wall and let the stream of water wash away the desert that had formed in my throat. When I looked up, I wasn't alone in the gym, but Faye wasn't the one keeping me company.

"So you're really gonna do it," Mike said as he gave me an analytical kind of look.

"It'd probably be smarter if I left the country, but I'm kind of hoping to moving up to bigger and better things by seeing this out to the end," I said back conversationally.

He surprised me by shrugging. "I don't know. Honestly? You're probably better off spending the time you got left helping us kill Taint. It seems like they're starting to make their push. If we don't have all the power we can get, we probably won't be able to do anything about it."

"How bad is it?" I asked.

"There've been five killings tonight. All police. All torn to bits with inhuman strength. A city councilman was attacked too, and he's catatonic after whatever happened to him."

"And Altis is out there hunting down whatever did it, I'd assume."

Mike made an amused noise. "Pfff. What else would he be doing?" he asked, like I'd just said the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. He glanced toward the door as Faye came back in, and giving me a strange look, like a cross between annoyance and pity, he swept back out the door.

Faye looked at me curiously. "What'd he want?"

"To warn me, I think."


	14. Chapter 14

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 14

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. But don't be afraid to ask.

It had been thirty-three days since I'd seen the sun.

The huge lamp hanging over me was making a hell of an attempt at subbing for it, though.

"Are you ready for this, Madeleine?" a voice from out in the darkness beyond the ring of light around me asked. Doctors all decked out for surgery walked into sight.

"It's what I've been here trying to earn for the last month, isn't it?" I asked back.

He chuckled a little. "That was your last test." Somebody put a breath mask over my face and the air I was breathing smelled sweeter.

"When you wake up, we'll have a new name for you," the doctor said. I'd be able to see the fleas on a dog's back a two hundred feet too, but thinking about what they were going to do to make that possible made my stomach churn a little.

I didn't get to focus on that thought for too long. The room blurred as the doctor reached for his first instrument. Then I was out.

At some other point in my life, I might've been amazed at how suddenly I woke up. I was groggy for hours after I woke up from getting my wisdom teeth pulled. That was before I had a black blob try to crawl inside my skin and had spent most of a month working out non-stop, though.

I was still in the operating room, but lights were on everywhere instead of right above me. Standing over me with a smile on her face was Faye McGee. I could see every single pore on her cheeks like I was looking at her through an observatory telescope.

"Do I know you, lady?" she said. "You look sort of like this wimpy reporter I brought in here a couple weeks ago."

I smirked back up at her and gave her a shove. She must've staggered back five feet before she stopped.

"Down, girl," she warned me with a smile, and held something out for me. "Save that stuff for the Taint."

It was a belt with a thin red box on it. I didn't have to guess what it was for. I took it and realized I was grinning myself. I knew what kind of responsibility came with this thing. I was accepting that I would be asked to risk my life, maybe every day, by wearing it. I took it anyway.

If I was lucky I might even get to crack the story of the century while I was at it.

I looked Faye in the eye and could see every little vein. "Is this it, then? I mean, now it's official?"

"If you were expecting a big ceremony you must've been thinking of some other outfit. Yeah, you're one of us now, Tora. And don't worry about the eyes, all that settles down pretty quick."

"That's good to know," I said. We left the medical wing and I got dressed again. As I strapped on the belt, which weighed practically nothing, Faye reached over and pushed down on the top. One second it looked like one of those weird buckles Altis and the others wore, the next it was the most average-looking black leather belt I'd ever seen.

"That figures."

"It's actually pretty new," Faye told me. "Mine's getting refitted with that system. Altis refused to even let them try with his, though."

Altis. God, how long had it been since the last time I saw him? He'd been back to the little hideout a few times, I'd caught him training in the gym. I'd always been sparring with Faye or somebody else when he was, though, and he was always gone before I finished. But then, he didn't do anything except kill Taint. Ever. Everybody there did that, sure, but Faye brought in beer and movies and we'd hang out some nights. Nobody around the base talked about doing that with Altis.

"So," I said. "When do I get to bag my first Taint?"

"You get to _investigate_ a site of occurrence with me and Mike as soon as we get back to Rittersburg." "That's all, huh?" It's what I was used to.

"No, it's not. We've picked up three new Taint."

"I thought we couldn't just pinpoint them with radar and go after them. Their energy only shows up once in a while."

"We can't," she corrected me. "Not unless they're as powerful as these ones. These ones give out a less intermittent signal."

That explained why I was being sent out right after I got my belt. "So I do get to bag my first Taint."

Faye's face got somber. "Odds are, yeah. Don't get any ideas about this being fun, though."

"Faye? My sister's dead. Altis probably would've smashed me into goo too if Abby hadn't been right there when the slime tried to crawl into me. No, this isn't fun. Exciting, yeah, but that's not the same thing."

"Good," she said, smiling a little grimly.

We walked to the little garage where they kept all their cars and the motorcycles the agents used while they were in the base. There was one I'd never seen before parked next to Faye's. The plating on it was dark red with yellow trim. The keys were already in it.

I looked over at Faye. "Would I be overestimating myself if I guessed that was for me?"

"It's your other graduation present," she explained, a smirk breaking through all the doom and gloom.

We rode back to Rittersburg, and I thought of how weird I must look with how long it'd been since I'd ridden an actual motorcycle. Not since those two weeks I went out with that one guy right when I was feeling especially free after I started college. Lucky for me that was something else I'd been taught to the point of exhaustion over the last month.

Faye led the way to a crummy motel near the west side of the city. One with doors to the rooms on the outside. I knew the kind, but the way we got in was a new one on me. Faye took out a gizmo that was made of a plastic card with a magnetic strip hooked up to a little black box with LED lights on one end. The red one blinked at us a few times before the green one went on and the lock clicked open.

I'd been expecting a disaster area on the other side, but for a motel room the place was actually pretty neat. The bed had been slept in but not made up, and the stench of days-old laundry drifted from a traveling bag in the corner but that was it. At least, that was it for anything any normal investigator would've noticed.

On the pillow I could see droplets-tiny, tiny droplets-of blood. They were so small as to be invisible to the naked eye, but there was something else there besides dried blood. Something thick and black…

"Madeleine, watch the door while I'm looking around," Faye said, and I stepped outside, shut the door and took up a lookout at a discrete distance.

Looking inconspicuous was, something I wasn't entirely surprised to learn, part of the curriculum for becoming a semi-professional monster killer. It went against the grain for me, since my job normally called for me to get people to notice and talk to me, but they told me I was doing okay by the time word came down I was ready for my robot eyes.

A couple minutes went by while Faye was inside the room. People passed, but went up the stairs next to where I was standing or into other rooms. Some of them eyeballed me, but nobody did anything else to acknowledge I was there.

Then, I saw _her_. I thought my eyes didn't take for a second, because all I saw for a second was a person-shaped blob of black walking toward me. I concentrated and I could see a lumpy brunette woman coming closer, but with my new eyes I saw blotches of black glistening all over her body. That was when I realized she was looking right at me. And she'd stopped in front of the room Faye was checking out.

"Do you need something, lady?" she asked me with obvious irritation. I'd heard people say nastier things to me. I moved to the window and tapped it twice with the end of my finger like I hadn't realized how close my hand was to the glass. I hoped I'd done it hard enough for Faye to hear, because I'd just found the Taint staying there.

Before she could make the first move, I jumped at her and locked my hands around her throat. If Faye didn't hear the signal on the glass, she was sure as hell about to hear another one. She hissed at me and tried to pull my hands off her neck, but while she was doing that I kneed her in the stomach. She doubled over and I gave her a kick to the forehead that knocked her on her back.

They hadn't had to squeeze years of hand-to-hand combat training into the month I'd been at the base, I had a decent background in that already so it wasn't hard to pick up some of the more advanced stuff. What they mainly taught me was priorities when I ran into a Taint. If possible, get them off-balance to give yourself the opportunity to change safely. Stopping them from escaping is the highest priority during an encounter. Things like that.

I hoped I was doing the trainers proud as I pushed the switch to turn my belt on. "Transform!" I yelled to key the voice recognition system too. Then, for the first time, I changed.

It started with a tingle at the base of my neck that turned into a feeling of cold that spread over my whole body. Then it was replaced with a hot, kind of heavy sensation. It was my suit finishing the process of forming around me. It was just as well, the lady I'd just knocked flat jumped back up and landed on her feet. Her fingers had already stretched out into horrifically long tendrils, and like I'd seen happen what seemed like a hundred times already, her skin was already cracking and falling off. Underneath she was green and leathery. Then her head cracked open, and a green face with dark hollows for eyes and a gaping mouth replaced it. Twisted growths that looked sort of like tree branches reached up from its head like hair.

My first Taint and it was a plant? Since when could they do that? And why was I thinking about logistics when a very pissed looking monster had finished the change to its fighting form in front of me? It swung an arm at me and four whip-like vines caught me on the side.

I went into a roll to lessen the impact, which wasn't all that bad to begin with. I felt pain through my suit, but it felt more like a single punch to my side than a super-strong monster whipping me four times at once. I turned, crouched and jumped at the Taint, concentrating on the end of my fist.

A transparent disc formed there, amplifying the force of my blow as it rammed into the Taint's head. It recoiled a couple steps but didn't go down. I crouched then jumped in arc, linking my hands together and aiming them at the top of the Taint's head when I started to come down. I concentrated again, imagining a short triangular blade between my hands. One appeared and cut into the top of the Taint's head, but even as black goop started to leak from its wound it wrapped a couple vines around my leg and threw me through the windshield of the nearest car.

Again, it was surprising how I didn't feel almost dead after taking a hit like that. I was dazed for a second, a few pinpricks of pain here and there that were already fading. Still, the Taint was probably winning. I'd hit it twice, and it didn't seem like I did much damage either time. Was I not focusing the energy hard enough? Was my timing off, and the potency had faded before I hit? The weapons I created didn't last long, after all, and only had a short window, a very short window, for when they were really effective.

The Taint's vine-fingers dug into the street as I was peeling myself off the car and erupted all around me. They came at me from all directions in a whipping frenzy. I formed a blade in each hand and sliced through two, let the blades disappear and formed a shield in front me as I charged through the vines to get to the Taint itself. I took a few vines to the back and almost went down, but in another second I was through. The Taint was right in front of me.

I worried for a second about Faye, and why she wasn't joining in when there was no way she hadn't heard the chaos unfolding in the street. I thought hard on the image of the weapon I needed next and a circular saw blade as big as a hubcap flickered into being in front of me. With a thought it went whizzing at the Taint and cut right through its left arm. It gave off this weird roar like a tree groaning right before it falls over, but the wound closed up.

Then another arm started to grow where the old one had been.

I created another blade as quick as I could and sent it at the Taint but it whipeed a vine at my projectile and caught it on the flat side, and knocked it away before it got close enough to do any damage. By then its other arm had grown back and it hit me full in the chest with all four vines. That time, I felt it. And it hurt. Not as much as when I flew backwards into a brick wall, though.

An idea hit me as I got up. It would be trick y to pull off, but it didn't seem like anything less would bring down a Taint like this. And for whatever reason, I was on my own.

I ran back and forth down the street in the Taint's direction. It kept whipping its vines at me or jamming into the ground to try to get me from below, but I was always gone just a little bit before it would've clobbered me. I sent a blade at the Taint, then ran to my right and sent another one without waiting to see if the first connected. I kept going, sending another one. Then another one.

None were as sharp as I could've made them if I'd taken the time, but I didn't have the time to take. I heard that tree-falling-over noise, then it got louder and angrier, and I took that to mean my idea was working. I kept running in circles around the Taint, sending blades at it as quickly as I could. Vines kept breaking out the street trying to get at me so I couldn't slow down to see how much damage I was doing, but after about the thirtieth blade I stopped hearing the asphalt shattering behind me.

The Taint was gone, all that was left was a pile of hunks of vegetable matter dripping with black goo. It looked like it worked; I'd cut it so fast and so often it didn't have time to grow back. When the pieces shrank back to human remains a second later, I wasn't feeling too proud of what I'd just accomplished. Instead of focusing on that I tapped another switch on my belt and the black goo flowed into an intake on the front. When it stopped I kicked in the door to the room where I'd left Faye.

While I'd been busy with the tree Taint outside, it looked like Faye had been busy with something in there. The bed was tipped up to lean against the wall, or the larger piece that hadn't been hacked off, anyway. Near the bathroom in the back the sink had fallen off the fall, but looking closely it I swore I saw a tiny crack in the floor underneath it.

The sink and the floor underneath it moved with one good kick. Underneath was a tunnel sloping down. Not too far before it leveled off, but I had my answer for what had happened to Faye. I slid down it and got up to run, grateful to whoever had put night vision in the power suits.

It's easy to lose your sense of place when you've got nothing to orient yourself. I didn't know how long I'd run before I the tunnel turned up and I had to crawl up a slope before I was up on ground level again. The tunnel let out into what looked like some kind of old factory, with conveyer belts and catwalks all over the place.

It also had three Taint standing around something not far away from me, and I didn't have to guess what.

I whipped another circular blade and buried it in it the back of the nearest one, who was long, pink and slimy. It thrashed around in and the slash I made in its back closed up as I watched, but at least I got their attention. They turned around, and I got a better look at them. The one I sliced had a long segmented body, long and pink with spindly little arms and legs, and its head opened up into four triangular flaps revealing a gaping mouth.

The others were even scarier, if only because the power I was picking up off the two of them was twice as high as the other one. One of them looked like a bear, but with glistening red eyes, clawed hands instead of paws, and something in its stomach that it took me a second to recognize as another mouth. One big enough to swallow my head whole.

The last Taint was even bigger than the bear one, but that probably had to do with how it looked like it was based on a huge red bull. It had pair of horns, each a good two feet long, and a bovine face that was only missing a metal ring through the flaring nose.

And between them, unconscious and dripping blood from her head, was Faye McGee. She didn't even have a chance to transform before they got her. The Bull Taint had a squirming black blob in one hand, but it squirmed underneath his skin as they turned to face me.

The three of them split up, the Bear Taint coming straight toward me while the Bull and Worm ones circled toward me from the sides. This wasn't good. The slight amount of Taint that I had in my system made it so I could use a more powerful system than the one most of the other investigators wore, but I wasn't supposed to be fighting three Taint by myself on my first case. Especially not ones like these. Even if the Worm Taint wasn't as powerful as the other two, it was probably a quick healer, and the strategy I used on my last kill wasn't that viable if he had two other monsters helping him out.

But hell if I wasn't going to make them work for it

The Worm Taint weaved toward me on its belly, its arms and legs hanging from its sides limply, looking almost silly until it open its mouth again and a jet of green slime shot at me. I got out of the way with only a few tiny drops on me, but I could hear the hissing as they ate into my suit. I saw the Bear Taint coming right at me from my left and created a different kind of weapon this time, a heavy orb, and lobbed it at the mouth in its stomach that was opening up to take my arm off. The orb hit the Taint in the neck and knocked it down, just as Bull Taint charged from the other side of the room, shaking the ground with every step. I got out of its way, but it was quicker than it looked and turned at the last second and slashed me across the back with a horn. The suit didn't do much to blunt the feeling of that attack. I went flying into some piece of machinery and slid off, seeing stars.

I'd made a stupid mistake rushing after Faye like I had. I should've called in, told home base where I was so they could send help in case of trouble. That wasn't just standard procedure, it was common sense. I concentrated a little and a small light started to blink in the corner of my mask's view. If anyone picked up the signal I was sending, at least they'd know what happened to us.

The Taint closed in on me again, Worm Taint coming straight at me at its two big brothers coming from the sides again. Worm Taint's mouth opened again but I created a disc underneath it and vaulted the disc upward as hard as I could manage. Worm Taint went cart wheeling and landed with a splat.

Bull Taint rushed at me, a horn aimed at my heart. I'd barely avoided that attack before, but I had an idea this time. If only I still had the energy to make it work.

The wall of angry red surged in my direction, and I created a disc underneath my fee. Then another one under that one, and another one under that one. Each pushed me a little higher until I was above Bull Taint. I jumped over it and formed a stubby blade-sacrificing size for sharpness-in my hand that I dug into its back.

It bellowed and I pushed the blade as deep as I could then dug it upward to the Taint's neck. It turned and kicked me down, but the anger burning in its eyes had dimmed.

It was more and more of an effort to focus the energy I was using to shape my weapons, though. I'd done too much too fast, and I only had one dead Taint to show for it. The one in front of me was wounded but the other two…they were already closing in to finish me off.

Then…the sound of an engine approaching. Something smashed through the wall of the building nearby. A motorcycle. Altis's motorcycle. With Altis on it, already in his Wanderer armor. There was another bike behind him, ridden by Mike in his own armor.

Bear Taint suddenly spoke up in a voice I recognized. It was the voice of that creature, the one made of black rock that had been forming a nest of snake Taint. "This venture has become too risky. Retreat."

Worm Taint spewed acid at the ground in front of it, burning a tunnel that it slithered into. The other Taint ducked inside. I didn't follow, I was kneeling down to check on Faye. Before I could go through any of the usual methods my eyes did the job for me. She was breathing just fine, no Taint in her system that my handy new x-ray eyes could spot.

"Leave her," Altis interrupted me. "Let's go."

I looked up at him. "What about Faye?"

"Kran will make sure she' all right," he said, indicating Mike with his thumb. "We've got a job to do," Altis said, then slipped down the tunnel after the Taint. A nagging little voice told me to stay with Faye; who knew if this wasn't just a trick so they could get rid of her while Altis and I were gone? Another voice told me go with him. Hadn't I joined this outfit partly to get to the bottom of the story? With a last look at Faye, I followed Altis.


	15. Chapter 15

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 15

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. But don't be afraid to ask.

Author's Note: Also check out the Kamen Rider Altis page at Spectrum of Madness for Altis's new suit.

For the second time in one afternoon I was crawling down a tunnel, to face who-knew-what on the other end. Odds were, it'd be even worse than what I ran into at the end of the first tunnel.

At least this time I knew where my back-up was.

Altis ran down the tunnel, bent over to keep his head from brushing against the ceiling. I tried to keep up with him while I ran bent over too-I was positive the Taint had done this on purpose-but I didn't quite have his experience and his outline in my vision shrank.

"Wait up!" I called after him.

"We have to keep them from getting away!" Altis called back, his voice a hollow echo in the distance. Soon I couldn't see him anymore at all. I tripped and fell at one point, making a noise something like a barrel of nails falling down stairs with all my armor rattling against the rough walls.

How did Altis keep up that pace all the time? Whenever I saw him without his armor, he looked so thin and pale. Even with an exposure to the Taint buffering his system it was hard to believe he had such endless energy. Or was it something else that was spurring him on whenever he had the chance to bring down a Taint or two?

A minute later I stumbled to the edge of the tunnel, but this one sloped down even deeper instead of leading back above ground. My blood froze for a second. Were they leading us to their lair? Where they'd be reinforced by who knew how many other monsters? Or worse, to where their boss was waiting for them? The thing made of black rocks? Even with a suit of my own and all that training, I wasn't looking forward to that fight…

The tunnel let out into another big room, but this looked like it had been carved out of the rock by the Worm Taint's acid spit. The room was full of shiny black tendrils sticking out of the walls, connected to human bodies that lay contorting on the floor every few seconds. Their skin would bulge and warp, and I didn't have to guess what was happening to them. What unnerved me the most was the fact that none of them made a sound as it happened. No gasps, groans or screams came from the people as they changed.

At least, that unnerved me the most until I realized what it meant that they had led us back here, to the place where they were creating more of their kind. They had to have some serious help waiting for them if they were willing to bring us to such an important place.

All of a sudden I spotted something giving off somewhere around three times as much energy as Bull or Bear Taint, and their energies had already dwarfed normal Taint by a frightening degree. I didn't have to guess what it was. Floating towards us was, sure enough, that thing with the pinprick eyes and body of black stone.

"You have my attention, humans," it growled. "Congratulations."

It thrust an open hand in our direction and a wave of green as wide as the entire room shot out at us. It knocked us across the room and tore some of the tubes hooked up to the unfortunate subjects loose. Those ones squirmed even more violently and screeched, finally making a sound. The ones that had been ripped from the tubes awkwardly stood, their bodies already starting to bulge as their inhuman forms set in.

"What do we do?" I turned to ask Altis. A lot of the strain of repeated use of my powers had cleared up, but I had little doubt our enemy had the advantage over both of us in raw power, experience and just plain nastiness.

"Circle around and keep the pressure on him. I'll go left," Altis answered, then took off, knocking down the couple of staggering newborn Taint as he did. I went the other way, whipping up saw blades to toss at the Taint leader. He just glared at them, and they disintegrated before they got anywhere close.

I kept the shots coming; saw blades, orbs, cubes, triangular blades. Any shape I could think of on the fly. None of it even touched him. I took off at a run and aimed a saw blade at the side of his head, hoping to hit him before he could see it coming, but it made no difference in the end. My little projectile his him full-on on the unprotected side of his glistening head, but ricocheted off into nothingness without even leaving a mark.

He pointed his palm at me and the world turned green as I was thrown across the room again. Right before I landed I saw something jumping at the Taint leader. As the green cleared from my sight I could see it was Altis in his Breaker suit, his legs wrapped around the Taint leader's waist as he smashed his hammer into its shoulders and chest. Chips and dust fell off, but the Taint leader knocked him off with one backhanded punch.

I got up and concentrated as hard as I could on two energy forms. Two big squares closed in on him from opposite sides and squeezed together to crush him in the middle, but he waved his hand once and shattered them both. Either I was too new at this or he was too strong for me, I didn't know. He aimed a finger at me and a bolt of green light shot out, and I formed a shield in front of myself with all the energy I still had. It wasn't enough. The bolt pushed against my shield for a minute, but then the shield disintegrated and I was tossed through the air again. I hit the wall, and that little bit of extra weight I felt from my suit went away.

Altis jumped in front of me, holding his hammer tight before he jumped at the floating Taint leader again. Another bolt shot from his finger, and this time it hit Altis in the shoulder. He landed next to me and his suit disappeared too.

The awakened Taint that Altis had bowled over before gathered around us. I couldn't recognize the forms they'd assumed because of the dim light, and because of the obscenely high energy readings blurring their shapes in my eyes. These weren't more powerful than most Taint, but that was small comfort with our powers having just quit on both of us.

Altis croaked out, "Here goes everything." Then I watched him pull off his transformation belt. It felt like I'd been dumped in ice water. I doubted he was strong enough to change again right after a blast like he'd just taken, but he wasn't just giving up, was he?

He pulled out another belt, this one white with four slots along its front, each the size and shape of one of Altis's transformation crystals. Almost reluctantly, he pulled out his four crystals too and slid them into the four slots. They started glowing the second the last one was inserted.

"Transform," Altis said, almost resignedly.

Silver, green, red and blue light poured from his belt before it all melted into a shit of blinding white. I squeezed my eyes shut and could still see the light through them for a few seconds, then when I dared to open them again without fear of burning them out, the room was still white, but it seemed as if the white radiance was rapidly being sucked up by someone standing in front of me.

It was Altis, that was obvious, but his armor was one I'd never seen. It was a dazzling white, and had a regal look to its many interlocking plates of armor. The first time Altis had transformed in front of me I'd been able to feel his power for just a second, but now there was so much rolling off him I was almost pushed against the wall again.

The Taint surrounding us recovered from their surprise, or the flash, it was hard to tell, and rushed at him from all sides. Altis clenched one hand and a hammer appeared in his grasp. Sort of. It was the shape of a hammer, but it was made out of light. I could see right through it. Altis's eyes turned yellow as he raised it over his head, then brought it down on the nearest Taint's head.

In the next second, that Taint didn't have a head anymore. Just a fountain of black goo erupting from its neck before it fell backward.

Altis swung again and knocked another Taint's upper half from its body. Another swing, another Taint separated from its lower half. The rest piled on him but there was a flash and Altis stood up, surrounded by piles of black dust.

The Taint leader growled and pointed a finger at Altis, but Altis clenched a fist behind his head like he was about to throw a javelin. One appeared in his hand, transparent like the hammer, and he threw it before the Taint leader had a chance to fire. The javelin went right through the Taint leader's arm and it yowled in pain and fell out of the air.

In an instant Altis was over it, a sword forming in his hands over his head. He brought it down and chopped clean through the already pierced arm. Altis brought back his sword and stabbed it at the middle of the monster's torso. I focused on it, and it looked like that was where the monster's energy was coming from. The tip sent shards of rock flying from the monster's chest and it didn't yowl this time, but its mouth opened, exposing those huge teeth it had.

Altis's sword pressed deeper. The Taint Leader pushed itself away and waved its hand in front of it as Altis and blocked his sword with a shield of the green energy that seeped from its palms. It clenched its teeth as the sword hit the energy it was giving off, like it still had felt the attack. Altis swung again and smashed through the energy, taking two of the Taint leader's fingers with it.

I was feeling a little better by then, and so I got to my feet and I yelled, "Transform!" It was weaker than before, before I felt my suit forming and I rushed over to help Altis. I formed a triangular shape with edges as sharp as I could and threw it into the spot where Altis had dug his sword. The blade hit something that made the Taint leader clench its teeth. Altis ran after it, his sword glowing even brighter as he aimed it at the monster's heart again. His jab was slower than before, and Altis fell to his knees, the sword flickering away before it could make impact.

The Taint leader floated backward, almost looking like it was grinning. It opened what was left of its remaining hand and green energy flowed from it, forming a sword of umbrella facing it. The slopes of the energy it created plucked up the people still hooked up to tubes in the walls and carried them with the Taint leader as it retreated backward. I threw a few projectiles at the energy but even before they left my hands I knew it wouldn't be enough. The Taint leader was reeling from the number Altis did on him, but I was reeling from the number the Taint leader did on me. After it was a safe distance way, it turned the green energy on the ceiling and rocks started to fall. I grabbed Altis and hauled him back to the tunnel before the whole thing fell down on us.

I had to drag Altis all the way back to the factory. By the time I pulled him out of the hole and propped him up against a machine with the last of my strengh, Faye was up and around again.

"Is she clean?" I panted.

"Near as I can tell," Mike said, but he wasn't looking at me or Faye, rather the white-clad shape I'd come out of the whole with. "What happened to Altis?"

"That secret weapon of his, I guess," I guessed. "We better get back before anybody shows up to find out what that cave-in was…"

* * *

While Mike and Faye got Altis back to base, I excused myself and got over to where about we'd fought the Taint leader. Just as I'd expected, a bit chuck of street had fallen in and cops were everywhere. I asked if they knew what caused it, or if they'd seen anyone in the rubble, but the answer was no. I'd been talking to cops for a long time, and after a while, you can tell when even cops are trying to lie to you. These ones weren't.

As I talked to the police, tow trucks hauled a pair of busted-up cars out of the hole, full of people whose faces were stained with ribbons of dark red. More people killed by the Taint, and they hadn't even been scouted as new subjects.

"Listen, lady," the officer I'd been talking to said as I watched the cars grind their way up to street level. "We're trying to conduct an investigation here, so if you don't mind, why don't you find out what happened on the news like everybody else?"

"Because this is my job," I said under my breath. What I'd really wanted was to see if they had any clue what the cause was, and if they'd seen any inhuman corpses in the rubble. Apparently not. I got back to base as the sky was turning orange from the sun dipping out of sight. As soon as I was out of the elevator room, I saw Mike passing by.

"Hey!" I called to him. "How's Altis?"

"Not good," Mike said quickly. "They'll tell everyone when they know more." Then he hurried on past.

I went to the broom closet they laughably called my quarters and fired up my laptop. I thought about writing something to send to my editor, but what did I really have to tell him? There had been a fight, and people had died, but without explaining I happened to be an armored vigilante, I couldn't really tell him what the cause was.

I did have a job to do, but I had to be smart about it. Besides, my mind wasn't really on writing articles at the moment. Altis had passed out from the fight, something I'd never seen before except when he'd taken a couple blasts to the face from the Komodo Taint.

Someone knocked on my door, and I opened it to see a thin woman in a nurse's uniform standing there. "Altis is awake," she said simply.

"Oh yeah? Where?"

She showed me, leading me to the infirmary where Altis was laying on a gurney, his eyes open but sucking breath through an oxygen mask. The esteemed Gloria Song was already there, along with Faye, Mike and a bunch of other people I'd seen in the training rooms a few times.

"How is he?" I asked, louder than everyone else's murmuring.

"He's stable, but weak," Gloria answered me, and everyone else fell silent. "Suppose now's as good a time as any to tell you all this. Altis used a new enhancement system to get out of a desperate situation. It's superior even to his regular system, but it puts a terrific strain on him."

"Meaning what?" somebody asked.

She flashed a dark look at the group. "Meaning Altis has a month less to live thanks to the two minutes he used it."

A new round of murmuring kicked it up but Gloria shut us all up with a particularly stern cough. "Keep it together, people," she barked. "Altis is important to this operation, you have my permission to punch anyone who says otherwise. But things are only going to get tougher. They already are, that's why Altis is in there. We'll need everybody if we're going to make this happen. Now, back to work."

Everyone else filed out. I walked over to the glass, and for the briefest of seconds, Altis looked over and our artificial eyes met. Then he went back to looking up at he ceiling.

"Is it okay if I go in and talk to him?" I asked Gloria.

"No, it isn't," she said evenly.

"At least tell me one thing."

"I'll try," she said.

I sighed. "You said Altis had a month less to live. The way you said it, that's the worst thing that ever happened."

Gloria sighed and took off her glasses. "Altis is strong, but the Taint did a number on his body when it failed to take him over. Plus, using that enhanced belt we just gave him is burning the candle at both ends."

"What?"

Gloria sighed again. "Because of what the Taint did to him, Altis has about two years to live. And using the enhanced belt gives him an incredibly potent fighter, but it's such a strain it eats up a lot of that remaining time whenever he uses it. Let's just hope he doesn't have to."

Two years to live? That one little phrase said so much about Altis. About why he fought so hard to get back at the Taint. Why he was also distant or gruff, even to his own brother. And why he'd been hesitant to use a superior battle suit.

The underlying message of what she'd just explained didn't escape me. "Then what about me?"

"Good lord, nobody told you? They didn't, did they? Well, I suppose I'm not surprised, we're working a skeleton crew…"

"Gloria, answer please."

"Right. The Taint didn't get you as thoroughly as it did Altis. We think your life span may have been shortened by the infection, but we don't know how much. The gap of the degree between your infections is just too wide."

"That's…reassuring," I said, mostly to myself.

"I never promised you a rose garden, Madeleine. We've got a volunteer staff, gathered from wherever we could find someone willing to help who met our minimum standards. Not everyone here is at the top of their field."

Well that was the perfect capper to an already dubious day. I'd tried so hard to live clean, and my time on this bassackwards little planet had been shortened by who knew how much anyway. Still, that was nothing compared to Altis. Two years? And a month of that was gone thanks to the stunt he pulled to save us from the Taint leader?

Again Altis met my eyes, but this time I caught a glimpse of something familiar there before he looked away. Fatigue. I didn't blame him at all with the things he'd been through. Let alone all the things he had yet to go through.

"Go get some rest," Gloria urged. "We'll call you when we've got another job for you."

I slunk off, trying to put the new revelation in the best light I could. All I managed was the thought that if I didn't nail this story, I wouldn't live long enough to regret it no matter what happened.


	16. Chapter 16

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 16

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. But don't be afraid to ask.

For once, things were busy around the American Graphic.

Two other reporters were talking about a building caving in on the west as they hurried past my desk. I didn't need to listen in. I'd been there when it happened. Not that I felt much like Rittersburg was any safer for what I did there.

"Tenant Alexis Fisher described the intruder that killed her neighbors as 'big, like a gorilla. But it had five arms.' With this, the third attack in the space of a week, police have responded to reports of this bizarre incident by announcing plans to increase patrols in the Lorenson area, and are asking citizens to report any strange events to them as soon as possible. Let's hope it's enough."

I glanced over the article that paragraph capped off, then hit the send button. Not a daring tale of armored heroes doing battle with half-human killers, but after that building nearly came down on top of me I wasn't feeling like writing about my own exploits again just yet.

I put a few things in my bag and turned off my computer for the night. I'd done my job there, but it was getting dark and I had to report to my other job. I sighed and clutched the belt inside my back, wondering if I should really be doing this.

Before I even got all the way down the stairs from the office, I could see my other job was already waiting for me. Leaning on a motorcycle was a wiry guy in a trench coat. His eyes looked even more sunken than when I saw him wearing an oxygen mask on a hospital gurney a few days before.

"Evening, Madeleine," he said, giving me the most neutral look you'd ever see.

"How many cases we looking into tonight?"

"Five," he said.

"Fivee?"

"Starting to see why most of us only do this?" he asked without inflection. "They're happening more and more. I had six last night"

"My circumstances are a little different. I wasn't exactly Department of Defense when I got asked."

"Neither was I. Let's go."

He strapped on a helmet and started up his bike. I jogged around the corner and started up my own and pulled into the street just as he sped past me. He was going fast but I managed to stay close. It helped that he was leading me down the less busy streets to wherever our first investigation of the night was.

After a while the buildings we passed got more and more rundown. In every dark cranny I was sure I could see sets of red and yellow eyes disappearing as we rode down the empty street. Still, my new eyes weren't picking up any traces of actual Taint, so I tried to blame it on still being shaken up about the other night. Not the kind of thinking I should be allowing myself, I knew, but maybe I thought it got easier to ignore after you'd been doing it a while.

Altis pulled to a stop in the space behind four different buildings, where all the dumpsters were kept. He pulled something out of his coat, and in the faint light I could just make out the shape of a revolver. He squeezed the trigger three times, then tossed the gun aside and turned down an alley without waiting for me. I had an idea what he had in mind and bumped my knee against an almost unnoticeable switch on the side of my motorcycle. The noise of the engine faded until it was almost unnoticeable, even to me, sitting on top of it.

After a few minutes I could hear a police siren approaching, and as it did Altis pulled into the street and cruised toward it. Slowly, what with the silencer being on with his bike too, but I saw those flashing red and blue lights passing through a crack between buildings. And at the end of the street, there was a car that'd been flipped onto its roof and was surrounded by yellow police tape. In the front two seats I could see the shapes of two bodies with their limbs contorted at unnatural angles.

Altis pulled up to it and knelt down by the side. I got off too, and didn't have to bend down to see what he was looking at. Little shimmering droplets of slime were lying on the ground at the edges of the car and led over the fence of a nearby tennis court and out of sight. There were a series of indentations in the chainlink, like something with big hands and feet had climbed it in a hurry.

"Any idea what we're dealing with?" I asked.

"A wounded one, if it's still leaking the slime. If we catch it fast, it probably won't be too hard to bring down."

"As long as he wasn't running to meet any of those super-strong ones we ran into before."

Altis grimaced as he remembered that fight. "Yeah. If they aren't any of those around."

"You heard anything from Versa lately?"

"No…and I don't like it," Altis grimaced harder.

He got back on his bike and tooled down the street and I followed, glancing to the side every few seconds to keep the trail in sight. After a couple dilapidated blocks it led us to what looked like it had once been a rec center. Once. Sheets of plywood were nailed up over the front windows, but I got one off with one good yank.

I was the first one in this time, and was still sort of getting used to not needing a flashlight anymore. The surprise of my eyes automatically adjusting made me feel a twinge of shame, but that faded as I spotted the warmth of fresh paw prints on the floor. The weight of my transformation belt was reassuring, and I thought about switching it on right there since whatever we were tracking obviously wasn't far away. The other night had been a close call.

But we had to try to take whatever it was by surprise if we were going to wrap this up quickly. I waited until Altis was next to me, then we followed the prints into the gym. Altis looked around the doorway, then waved for me to follow. The prints led through another pair of doors into a dank locker room. Some of them had fallen over and were blocking the door leading in from the lobby. There was a foul smell in the air, but it wasn't one of mildew and sweat. It was more like blood. Blood and…acid.

The prints went through a puddle on the floor and stopped registering to my eyes. I tensed; who knew where it was hiding, if it knew we were there and was waiting for a chance to attack?

Altis snuck past me and gave me an irritated looked over one shoulder as he skirted the puddle and moved without making a noise toward the other side of the room. I followed him, keeping one hand near my belt at all times.

The other door leading out of the locker room was the one to what had, at some point, been the swimming pool. It certainly couldn't be called that anymore.

My eyes nearly exploded from the huge amount of pure Taint lapping back and forth in the pool. A couple of prints, fainter than before but with the same look of the others to them, were in front of the edge. Facing it, so whatever had made them was probably down in that mess.

"What do we do?" I asked.

"Don't know. Didn't bring the napalm," Altis said, as flatly as anything else that night. I could only stare at him and wonder if that was supposed to be a joke.

As if it knew we were there, the slime started to bubble angrily and a particularly large one formed near the edge closest to us. It exploded, disgorging a monstrous but humanoid shape that landed on the floor hard enough to crack it. The slime covering the Taint-creature quickly sloughed off, and as it did I could see three small circular gaps in its fur. The flesh underneath was a dark red, like freshly-formed scar tissue. My first thought was bullet wounds, but that was quickly followed up by the revelation that the monster was flying at me.

The desire not to have Faye throw me into the wall that had become instinct by then took over. The floor was cold and wet when I landed on it and rolled on my side. I pressed down on the activation switch on my belt and yelled "Transform!" at the top of my lungs before I even planted my feet again. There was that feeling of warmth, of power, and I jumped to my feet ready to fight.

Altis had already shifted to his Tidal form and was whirling the harpoon in sweeping arcs as the Taint ran around on all fours, trying to find an opening so it could pounce on him. It had twany fur speckled with black stripes, and a snarling feline face. It looked like a giant bobcat, nothing something I was honestly expecting to see as a Taint.

I waited for just the right moment and then formed a shaped I'd thought about using for a while. It was a bolt on a long cord and it whistled through the air into Lynx Taint's back. I grabbed the cord and dug in my feet as the Taint yowled and jumped back and forth even more wildly than before, trying to pull itself free. Altis cocked back his harpoon and it started emitting a blue light.

"Heart Seeker," he said, emotionless as always, then threw the harpoon. It slammed into Lynx Taint's chest right where the heart would be, but the hissing monster reached up with one huge paw and yanked the harpoon out. It swept its paw at the bolt I'd lodged in its leg and knocked that out too.

Lynx Taint tackled Altis then and went for his neck with its teeth. He grabbed it by the neck just inches away from contact. I whipped up a heavy cube and threw it at the Taint. My attack hit it in the side and knocked it onto its back, but it rolled and was up on all fours a second later.

That was all the time I needed, and I concentrated as hard as I could. This was something I'd been told I could do since even before they gave me a transformation belt, but I was still unsure I could do it.

But hey, what the hell? The only thing that could happen if I screwed up was I'd die.

I concentrated, harder than I could ever remember concentrating in my entire life. Then again, maybe that wasn't saying much. Immediately, Lynx Taint was frozen in place as an X-shaped transparent sheath splayed its arms and legs. A transparent bar extended out of the front of the sheath, then another from the back, then a bar branched off from the first.

More bars branched off one another until it a crystalline tree of sorts had formed around Lynx Taint. It got larger and more elaborate the longer I held my concentration, but the more complex the network got the harder it would be to pull this off. I had to work fast.

"Piercing Infamy," I said, straining to get the syllables out. The bars suddenly shot inward and Lynx Taint let out a reverberating howl. The bars flickered out and all that was left was a greasy black smear on the floor.

"That wasn't so tough," I gasped.

Altis didn't answer. He had his back to me, and I walk over to see he was actually holding a phone to his ear already. "Yeah, there's a whole damn swimming pool full of that stuff over here. A Taint jumped out of it and attacked us, but Tora got it. Look, just get somebody over here and have them bring something to suck up all this slime. Something big."

He closed the phone and sat down then pulled the shard out of his belt and reverted back to the pale-skinned drifter I'd followed for so long. A tweak of my own retroform switch and I was back to normal too.

"So what do you think that is?" I pointed at the pool. I had a few ideas myself, like maybe it was a place for injured Taint to recover. Maybe another Taint breeding ground like we'd seen before. Hopefully, it was the only one of its kind.

He shrugged. "Some kind of Taint first aid, probably. If anymore show up looking to get healed, we'll have to stop them here. Stay alert."

That was the end of that conversation. If I so much as opened my mouth in his direction he glared at me I and shut up to listen for anything trying to sneak in. I heard the wail of a police siren in the distance, and wondered if we'd be looking into whatever prompted that before the night was out.

While I knew I should've been helping Altis keep watch, in the back of my mind I realized I was thinking a little about Versa. About what he'd been up to since I'd turned down his offer to join him, and what he planned to do when and if we ran into each other again. Versa had some kind of mocking tolerance for Altis, especially when Versa could exploit him for something. But me? I had no idea. That offer of his had seemed awfully earnest, and I'd told him no right to his face.

Plus, he was some kind of shadowy government conspiracy. Yeah, those were real too. I was willing to take a lot of possibilities seriously after seeing the kinds of things I'd seen.

What that meant, though, was that if he was serious about screwing with me, he could seriously screw with me. Where was he? What was he up to? And would he be willing to kill me to get what he wanted? Like an entire swimming pool full of pure Taint?

The feel of my belt beneath my fingers was a little reassuring, but only a little. Versa's was probably even more powerful, and he'd been using it for more than a couple days.

Then again…he'd never said he'd come after me for turning him down. Just that I couldn't expect anymore favors from him. And as dodgy as he was, there was something about him that I felt I could trust…

And I'd been managing pretty well without him, now that I thought about it.

"So what happened the other night, anyway?" Altis asked all of a sudden.

I sighed and looked away. "Remember that Bear Taint? Maybe you don't, I was saving Faye from him that day you used your new belt."

"Ran into it again? Did you get it?"

I sighed again. "I go it. But the entire building we were underneath fell on top of us."

"A win's a win, Madeleine."

I sighed and shook doom and gloom thoughts from my head. They weren't making the job of waiting for backup any easier. I turned back toward the pool, but immediately something seemed wrong. The black gunk had stopped lapping at the sides. In fact, the level started getting lower!

"Altis!" I yelled. He ran over next to me and we both watched as the sludge seeped out of the pool completely. After a few minutes it had all drained away into a wide crack at the bottom, out of which drifted an unfriendly red light.

In a blink Altis had his phone in his hand again. "This is Altis. The pool of Taint I reported just know drained out of the bottom. I'm going down to investigate. Keep that backup coming and send anyone else who's free…I know everyone's busy, but this could be it. I'm going down now."

He went over to the ladder and started climbing down. I didn't waste any time in following. Altis looked up at me, then faced the wall again until he got to the bottom. Without waiting for me he lowered himself into the crack. Without waiting for an invitation, I followed.

Underneath was a tunnel where the walls themselves seemed to be giving off the light we'd seen, and lodged in it were thick transparent tubes. It reminded me of the place where Altis had fought the Taint leader, except colder. A lot colder.

As we walked Altis kept looking around, and his right hand started to shake as we followed the slope downward. He'd never done that around me before, and the reporter in couldn't help wondering what was going through the one-track mind of my hunting partner.

After about a hundred feet the tunnel leveled out just before another big crack, this onee in the wall in front of us. I peered through on one side while Altis looked through on the other. Inside, standing before some kind of horrific, trembling black mass nearly the size of a house was the Taint leader. The body parts Altis had lopped off in the fight that nearly killed the both of them had grown back. Somehow. A long bath in the pool topside wouldn't have surprised me.

For almost two minutes, the Taint leader spoke in this obscene bestial language, part snarling, part gargling. Listening to it made it feel like someone was massage the inside of my ears with sand paper.

Then something even more disturbing happened. The black mass stretched up until it touched the ceiling of the other room, and it started talking back in that same animalistic language. It was so loud, sounded so angry, the walls shook a little and dust and tiny debris fell from the ceiling.

"What the hell is that thing?" I whispered to Altis and realized how much my hands were shaking.

He stared thoughtfully into the next room as he answered me. "If I'm right, that's the source of the Taint. All of them. All of it."

"You think so?"

He did. He already had out his other belt and had closed it around his waist when all of a sudden the mass slammed down on the floor of the room. The ground shook too this time, chunks of the ceiling as big as basketballs fell from the ceiling. The Taint leader turned toward us and snarled so loud it almost shook the walls too.

"Get ready for the fight of your life," Altis whispered.


	17. Chapter 17

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 17

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. But don't be afraid to ask.

"Transform!"

As I felt my power settle in I saw Altis slipping his crystals one after the other into his belt. "Transform," he said solemnly once the final crystal had been placed.

"Surpass," his buckle said before it erupted with light and there he stood in that white and gold suit that made him look invincible. I hoped he was.

He charged into the other room before the Taint leader could go on the attack. The monster's palms glowed but before it could unleash who knew what Altis materialized a transparent version of his Breaker hammer and slammed the Taint leader clear over the black lump it had been talking to.

And then…we weren't alone. The ground right underneath me bubbled and it was all I could do to jump back before the rock melted into green goo. Through it crawled the Worm Taint from before. That horrible mouth opened and a jet of green slime shot at me. I jumped, tucked myself into a ball and landed behind it.

There was no time to half-ass this, something with huge wrinkled hands had grabbed the edge of Worm Taint's hole. A two-foot long spike formed in my hands and I stabbed it into Worm Taint's middle. The monster thrashed around, but already I could feel the wound closing and forcing my weapon back out.

All I'd really been hoping for was a distraction, though. I formed two new shapes, long, sharp-edged triangular constructs. Like scissors. Then I smacked them together, with Worm Taint in the middle.

Slime was sprayed everywhere. Worm Taint fell in two different directions. Its lower portion sloughed off a pile of the black slime I'd come to expect before revealing a pair of human legs, but the upper half thrashed around and squealed. Already a new lower half was starting to grow from its gaping wound, but I didn't have the time to focus on that.

Its friend had finished crawling out of the ground and snorted at me angrily. It looked a lot like the Bull Taint I'd seen the other day, but now it had an extra set of arms sticking out from its torso and another rack of horns above the other, these ones looking even sharper now. The reading coming off the thing were horrifying; nearly as high as the Taint leader itself. Bull Taint stamped a hoof and the ground actually quivered under my feet. When I recovered my footing a second later I saw Bull Taint charging me, horns lowered. The next thing I knew the world was turning end over end and my stomach seemed to be on fire.

The ground reached out and slammed into me and I rolled to a painful stop. Something cracked the ground as it pushed its way toward where I'd come to stop and I didn't have to guess what. I concentrated on a shape, a buzz saw blade, but it was still hard to focus. The shape rippled for interminable seconds, then my mind cleared and the shape solidified before it shot into the ground. Worm Taint was jerked back above ground, my transparent buzz saw lodged in its head for a second before it faded away.

For the moment that freed me up to focus on Bull Taint. I already felt the ground quivering as he stomped toward me so I jumped at the nearest wall, vaulted off and aimed my feet at the neck behind its lowered head. I was rewarded with a crunching impact below my heel an angry bellow. Quickly I sat down on Bull Taint's shoulders, grabbed the dull parts of its horns at the base and twisted quickly to my right.

Bull Taint didn't budge an inch. Instead it bucked its neck the other way and tossed me to the floor. It snorted and dug a hoof into the ground, and I was sure I was about to be trampled. I didn't have it in me to pull off another Piercing Infamy so soon; I should've thought to save it for something this powerful. But that wasn't the only trick I'd been taught to finish a fight quickly…

As quickly as I could, because Bull Taint had started its mad dash at me, I thought of three hooked arcs with sharp inner edges. They shimmered slightly as they formed in the air a few feet in front of me, and as soon as Bull Taint was within range I yelled, "Tora's Claws!"

The three razor-sharp constructs of mine ripped into Bull Taint's shoulder and torso. Black Taint sludge spurted out of its wounds. It bellowed again, louder this time, and stumbled into the nearby wall.

Then it got up and charged me again.

The world went dark as I balled up, pressing my knees against my mask in another aerial somersault to get away, but this time when I untucked myself I saw something stupefying. Bull Taint wasn't charging or even looking at me. It had stopped in its tracks. The cause was obvious.

Altis was standing there with a shimmering harpoon driven through the Taint leader's chest. Bull Taint stared for another second, then both of them let out a shriek. It took me a second before I realized even Worm Taint, its spindly new legs almost formed, had joined in too. Even the bulbous black thing the Taint leader had been talking to seemed to wail in pain. The ceiling rained bigger and bigger rocks down and I was positive it would be only a minute before the entire place caved in.

Worm Taint aimed its head at the floor and a fountain of the acidic green goo spilled out. It slithered away into its new tunnel before I had spared much thought to stopping it. Altis yanked his harpoon out of his opponent's body, and the Taint leader slumped to the floor and started to melt.

Bull Taint had almost recovered, but I wasn't about to let that get any farther. "Tora's Claws," I said again, with less force this time, and it was with less force that glowing claws fell. Still, it was enough. Chunks of Bull Taint filled the air for a few seconds but Altis had gone limp and the rocks bouncing off my suit were getting bigger. Soon they wouldn't be bouncing off anymore.

Altis was surprisingly heavy in all that extra armor as I hoisted him onto my shoulders and ran back the way we came. The crack in the bottom of the pool had widened and with an aching jump I landed on the inside of the pool before dragging Altis up to the top and heaving him onto the side.

The roof groaned and I was sure we were about to be buried in the collapsing building, but then someone ran by and picked ME up. My world bounced and a piece of broken something-or-other dinged off my helmet before I was dropped semi-roughly on the ground. I looked up to see Faye in her armor, Mike beside her settling Altis down. With what was left of my energy I lurched over and yanked the crystals out of Altis's belt.

His armor flashed out of existence and there lay the gaunt drifter. He looked even thinner than before. He was sucking in ragged breaths and twitching in horrible spasms.

"What the hell happened down there that he used that belt again?" Mike demanded of me.

"We ran into the Taint leader down there," I gasped and hit the retroform switch on my belt. They did the same. "And…something else. I don't really know. But it's okay, they're dead. Altis got the leader, and whatever that thing was must've been buried."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Faye said gravely.

My stomach clenched. "Why?"

"Just now one of the others called in. Described something just like the Taint creature Altis said that…that made the group of snake-based Taint," Faye said, obviously avoiding specifics of the victims of that fight around me. I was grateful.

"We'll get Altis back. Maybe you should go further your career," Mike suggested as he accepted the crystals from me. "You're the first one on the scene, after all."

"Not for long," I said as I staggered over to my bike which was perched on the lip of the new thirty-foot pit that had been the remains of a rec center. I stowed my belt in one of the side compartments and got out my camera and recorder instead. Wailing sirens and red emergency lights were already filling the air. A beat-up old blue car pulled up beside the pit, and even though it was the middle of the night I already knew whose it was.

"Troy," I said as the door protested noisily at being asked to open. "What the hell are you doing here?"

He didn't look much like the ace reporter who'd scoffed at my prize assignment so long ago. Troy's hair had been combed in a hurry, and my new eyes had no trouble making out the dark circles accumulating under his eyes. This wasn't the only building that had been caved in by a fight with the Taint, and as a result I wasn't the only person at the Graphic chasing the story anymore. Plus, the Taint usually weren't active in the day so having to report on them was playing hell with everyone's sleep schedules.

"Ha ha," he said flatly. "Beat me to the scene twice in a row now. You're getting better, Maddy."

I grimaced. I didn't want anybody reminding me of that, but Troy wasn't somebody I could tell why.

"So…," he said leadingly, but I didn't say anything. I was already measuring how much of what happened down there I could put in an article, and how I was going to explain having been down there to see it in the first place. Probably something about seeing Altis heading in and following him to see what he was up to. It was what had gotten me into all this in the first place, after all.

My camera whirred as I took a few pictures of the collapsed rec center, glaring over at Troy as he skirted the edge of the pit doing the same, both of us trying to get the better shot. He was just doing his job, true, but I hadn't seen him down there almost getting trampled by a giant bull.

Ah yes, the giant bull. That was another of those advanced Taint dead. Had it been the same one I'd seen before? I certainly hoped so. Besides, I had a feeling those new extra-strong Taint were being created in controlled conditions like in that room with all the people lodged in the walls. It hadn't been like that when they tried to get _me_.

How many more of those places could there be, creating those powerful new Taint? Not a lot, I hoped. Otherwise living in Rittersburg was going to be getting even more difficult very soon.

Two cop cars pulled up just ahead of a fire truck and I had little doubt they were merely the first of many. One of the officers grunted in annoyance as he spotted me and Troy, then jerked his thumb away from the pit. I moved away from the edge like he wanted. I was pretty sure I'd already be able to produce something that would outdo Troy on this story anyway.

I got on my bike and rode away before the cops could get organized enough to stop me to ask a bunch of questions. Talking to them wasn't something I was in the mood to do after seeing Altis even closer to death.

To say nothing of finding out just how little it had accomplished…

I pulled to a stop around the corner of a little all-night diner, with just enough light making it into the space between the buildings that I could probably see a Taint or a mugger before they tried to start something with me. Or maybe just someone at risk of overhearing me. My phone was in my hand and I dialed a number fewer than forty people new existed.

"Hello?" someone asked on the other end. Completely neutral, betraying nothing about who'd just answered.

"Tora," I said quietly, checking around me once again just to make sure nobody was listening in on me.

"Go to Ivy Street, 3500 block."

"Understood," I sighed and switched off my phone again. I sighed and hoped it wasn't another case like the one I'd just left, and wondered if I shouldn't forget about this next investigation and report in what I found down there instead. Did our superiors know about that giant black thing already? I was pretty sure I'd never heard of it, and it seemed an awful lot like something they would've mentioned if they did.

For that matter, the only other person who saw what happened down there wouldn't be in any shape to pass it on for a while…

A few minutes later I shut the garage to the safe house where I'd been staying. Nowhere in Rittersburg seemed "safe" to me anymore, though. The back door was old but they bent over backwards making sure it was easy to get in and out without letting anyone know you didn't want to. No rusty squeak gave me away as I made my way into the back room and switched on the lights.

The place was a little dingy, with secondhand furniture everywhere. I flopped onto a couch and tried to find the words to express what I saw as terrifyingly as possible. To express the urgency to track it down and make sure it was exterminated, and to explain why I was laying on the couch thinking about that instead of looking into another Taint sighting that night.

Screw it, making sure Gloria Song and her buddies knew about this was more important than taking care of a few individual monsters. I went upstairs to the dirt-smudged computer. Like that phone number, it was actually hooked up to a network almost nobody knew about. It was using that carefully-disguised piece of hardware that I, or anyone else staying there, would file reports on the Taint we'd most recently killed.

I waggled the mouse until the stars flying at me were gone and clicked on an unmarked portion of the screen. Three times. A new screen appeared with a blinking cursor. Slowly, I started banging out an account of what I'd seen.

I don't have to recopy it for you. I already have. Suffice it to say, fifteen minutes later I was looking at a hastily compiled report on the battle below the rec center and the feeling I was finding it hard to shake that that bulbous thing hadn't been killed in the cave-in.

I sighed and read my report over again, feeling all wound up for some reason. Wasn't this a good thing? Now we had some idea, however vague it was yet, of where the Taint were coming from and where to look for it. This was a step forward.

Yet, I'd only survived that discovery because Altis had killed himself a little more to gain the power to fight something like the Taint leader. Was there any way for anyone else to be that powerful, without having to suffer what Altis was suffering every time he put on that belt? I sighed again, angrily this time, and slammed a finger down on the Enter key to send it.

"Something on your mind?" a voice asked behind me. I whipped around and pulled my belt out of my bag in the same motion, but stopped when I saw Versa standing there, hands in his pockets. He had three long scars running down his right cheek just below his eye, and a dark red mark on his forearm that was roughly oval in shape. My eyes zoomed in on them, and I could see the flesh still knitting together on the scars. What had he been up to since our last meeting?

"Got some new trophies, huh?" I said, trying to sound relaxed. I set my belt down, but kept it within easy reach just in case.

Versa smirked. "These? Yeah. The Taint are getting nastier all the time. Don't ask to see the other ones."

"Can I ask what you're doing here, and how you got in? I thought you weren't doing me anymore favors after I turned you down."

"I'm not. But that doesn't mean we can't still be friends, does it?" Versa smiled tiredly. "I mean, I don't fight for the same reason you and Altis do, but believe it or not, we do all want the Taint gone.

"As for how I got it in, I can find people. Especially if they're after the same thing I am. And I thought it might be polite to see how you're doing."

I sighed and looked away. "I should probably fight you. You know that, right?"

"I know, but you aren't going to, and I'm pretty sure it's because you have something else on your mind."

Again I sighed. "It's Altis."

"What about him?"

"He's killing himself to fight the Taint."

Versa knitted his brow. "He hasn't really got a lot else to live for, does he? And he hasn't got the time left to live for something else."

"That's the point! He's got a new suit, and it uses up that time even faster whenever he puts it on!"

My hand flew to my mouth, that had been an idiotic thing to say to a rival interest party. Could I really blame myself, though? I wasn't an outside observer anymore. I was right in the middle of the whole black slimy mess. I hadn't even been fighting monsters for three weeks yet. It bothered me when I saw someone laying there twitching, inches away from death. Especially when it was the person I'd chased all over the state, following the trail of monster corpses he left in his wake.

Versa knitted his brow again then looked away. "That's not good news, is it?" he said.

"No, it really isn't. But that's not the only thing on your mind."

I slumped back down in my chair. "Is it that obvious?"

"Not to brag, but I bet I've been reading people longer than you have, Miss Moore," he pointed out. I sighed and looked away, and he waited for me to meet his eyes again before he said anything else. "Does it have anything to do with that building that caved in on the east side?"

I sighed again and looked away as I answered him. "What are you, my stalker?"

"I'm trying to be cordial, Miss Moore, but you are still competition."

"If you must know, I was fighting a Bear Taint that night. It had gotten into the basement of that apartment building and it damn near killed me. I did end up killing it, kind of, because it smashed the supports of the building so badly when it was trying to kill me the entire building fell down on it. With a good couple of the tenants inside."

"Are you sure you got it?"

"Yeah! I sucked the slime out of the rubble!" I yelled. "And the rescue people dragged a bunch of corpses out. Damn it, Versa, what am I doing?"

Versa didn't hold my hand, or tell me these things happen in a war, or I was out of my league in that fight and not to take it so hard. Instead, he said, "Well, Miss Moore, you'd better figure that out chop-chop, hadn't you?"

He opened the window and hoisted one leg out then turned to look back at me. "Hadn't you better get going?"

"What?"

"Haven't you got four more cases to look into tonight?" He slipped out the window and vanished into the darkness of early morning Rittersburg.

I sighed. He was right, I did. And I was going to have to handle it by myself now. The belt was heavy around my waist as I headed back out.


	18. Chapter 18

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 18

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. But don't be afraid to ask.

I sent a serrated disc flying at the Taint but before my weapon could connect the monster snapped its mandibles together and crushed it.

Something was happening with this one. Something I didn't like at all. It screamed at me in this horrible chittering cry, shattering the windows high above us. I ignored the glass, because the Taint's energy surged again. It flew at me, still screaming, and picked me up right off my feet. It only stopped when it slammed me into the wall and dropped me to the ground.

The landing wasn't as bad, since the body of the Cicada Taint's latest victim broke my fall. Blood oozed up and coated the side of my suit. That was how I could tell it was probably the newest victim, only a few of the other corpses I'd been running over and getting knocked into still had any juices to get on me.

I got up as quick as I could, but it wasn't quick enough. Cicada Taint's energy surged again, and another bug-eyed face sprouted on its shoulder. It screamed at me, from both heads this time. My entire world turned purple and I felt myself being picked up and thrown through the wall I'd only crashed into before.

Then I was out on the street, still seeing nothing but purple but hearing police sirens in the distance. A lot of good they'd be if the Taint evolved even further, which I had little doubt it would at the rate it was already going.

I heard that chittering scream again, but then I heard a car engine howling to life a second later. As my vision cleared I could see a car speeding right at me, and it was all I could do to form a curving wall with a sharp edge that bisected the car before it could crush me.

Which didn't mean it was the only thing trying to. The wall of the building where we'd been fighting exploded out and I whipped up a rectangular shield in front of me to block the hunks of concrete flying at me. The shield shattered as Cicada flew past them and barreled into me again. It picked me up off the ground, but this time, I was ready for it.

"Tora's Claws," I said and formed three sharpened arches in the air ahead of Cicada Taint. Even though it was a strain I formed another shape, this one triangular and almost as sharp between the fingers of one hand and sliced Cicada Taint's shoulder with it. It screamed again, but dropped me just as the arches I formed flew forward and chopped it to bits. I landed and went into a roll just before bits of monster had the chance to splatter down on top of me.

I turned around and hit the reclamation switch on my belt as fast as I could, then turned away. The sight of the human remains, sliced into meat by my attack, wasn't something I needed to see. The thought occurred that maybe I wasn't cut out for this kind of thing, but it was silenced by the thought that we needed everyone we could get.

Damn it, I'd seen the Taint suddenly mutate from a regular monster and get new powers before. Not as often as I'd been seeing it lately, though. At least this one hadn't had a chance to do it too many times before I got it.

The awful slurping noise of my belt collecting inert Taint slime stopped and I jogged away from the site of the battle. As I did I hit the switch on my belt that cancelled my transformation for the sixth time that night. There were more and more Taint to go after every single time I strapped it on. How was I ever going to write my articles if I spent all my waking hours chasing monsters? Maybe I was a little stronger than before thanks to the Taint that almost got me, but that didn't make it any easier to work 24-hour days.

My bike was in sight as I jogged away from the sound of sirens, but as I climbed on it I realized my belt was beeping at me. A purple light was flashing on the side with the switch that made it pick up slime after I'd killed a monster. After a second I remembered Faye telling me what that was. It was the signal that I'd collected as much slime as I could carry. Then I remembered I hadn't stopped to drop it off for the last three nights because all I'd been doing was getting up at ten, getting my reports, and going out and chasing down Taint monsters. I hadn't stopped to think during any of it, about anything. No wonder it was full.

I got on and pulled away before any of Rittersburg's finest saw me. The realization of how I'd been chasing down Taint for three nights without thinking to empty out my collection got me to thinking. Mainly about what had happened the last time I'd thought about what we were doing. How Altis had had to use his Surpass belt again, to kill the thing we'd thought was the Taint leader. Which wasn't, according to a report we got not two minutes after escaping from the building where we'd fought.

Altis hadn't been able to get up for days, and that was after the first time he'd used that belt in a fight. He'd looked even worse than normal BEFORE I saw him use it a second time. Would he even survive using the belt in a second fight? Did we have enough people to make up for the kind of power he offered if he didn't?

I sighed and sped up. Let me tell you, the superhero thing's not as easy as it looks on TV. At least, not when you're as new at it as I was that night.

It was almost four already and I couldn't carry anymore Taint if I turned anything up. It looked like I'd have to just stop in at the safe house and empty out my supply, and take whatever reprimand they thought I earned for not doing so sooner. When I got to the house I spent a few minutes checking all the bushes and behind the garage to see if anybody was hiding out there before I went in. There was no sign of Versa this time, but with all the Taint my side were going after, his side was probably just as busy as we were.

I unlocked the door and went straight down to the basement, where underneath a workbench covered by a sheet we kept a machine that looked sort of like a portable gas generator. On one side was a round slot, where people like me and Altis would stick the tube inside of our armor where the Taint slime was collected.

I pressed and held down the collection switch, and after a few seconds a transparent tube full of writhing black slime appeared in my free hand. It went into that round slot and then I pushed a series of green buttons on top. The machine sputtered to life-it may have been advanced but that doesn't mean we had the time to keep it in the best repair-and sucked up the contents of the tube. A minute later, it let out a satisfying grind and a small puff of black smoke that dissipated after a second.

"Maddy? Are you down there?" someone called and Faye stuck her head down the stairs to see what all the noise was.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. "I thought you had more assignments lined up tonight than I did."

"I did, but it looked like someone got there before me for most of them."

"Have you heard anything about Altis?" I asked, the fatigue making me my forget my usual professional demeanor.

"Gloria thinks he'll be able to come back to work tomorrow night, but she told me not to hold her to it," Faye explained. "What was all that noise? Did you let your tube get all the way full or something?"

I sighed irritably and nodded.

"Damn, Maddy. Didn't we tell you? With all the appearances we're looking into you have to empty it every night now. It's getting too hard on the machines to destroy that much."

"Yeah, I remember," I said without meeting her eyes. "I just…have a lot on my mind."

"We all do, but that's why we've all got to be on top of things."

"Mmmmhmmm."

"Maddy," Faye said sharply. I snapped up to face her. "I know you're not exactly Special Forces, but you signed up for this group and you're dead weight if we can't count on you. Shape up."

"Faye…I can't even look at the people left there after I kill a Taint," I moaned. "The last one I ran into…there must've been twenty five dead bodies in the building I fought it. There's probably still blood on my suit."

"It's not easy, Maddy. But you knew that when you said yes. You knew that way the hell before you said yes."

"Yeah…"

Faye sighed. "How many of those dead bodies you think I left lying around? Especially with how many we're looking into a night now." "Yeah…" I covered the machine up again, wondering if it was luck or decision that Versa didn't find it when he snuck in the other night, and followed Faye back upstairs. She was making coffee, but I turned down a mug. I was crazy enough to try to balance this with my day job. I still had to sleep sometime.

The stairs creaked under my feet as I dragged myself upstairs. Probably part of why they set us up in the place. It was old, people around there were used to it.

The door at the top of the stairs was the one I shared with Faye, and I flopped onto the bed by the window, setting the old mattress springs a-squeakin'. I had to twist the rod so the blind was slanted toward the mirror. Faye hated that, but there was no other way I could sleep in that room. There was a streetlamp right next to it.

As I slept I thought back to sneaking into that building, the one where I ran into Cicada Taint. It hadn't even taken two seconds before my robo-eyes started picking up the bodies. At least, the couple that were still fresh.

Most had their heads lolling back way further than should've been possible. It looked like Cicada Taint liked to bite open their throats and start eating from there. With how many were still warm, how many had squelched blood onto my power suit as we fought, it looked like it had a big appetite too. So much so it couldn't have been active for more than a couple days at most.

Six cases in one night. Six dead Taint finally filling up my little sample bottle. All of them had shown signs of recently going active. Almost all of them had shown signs of additional mutations. A few had even mutated right when I was fighting them.

"Hey! Maddy! Get down here!" Faye yelled up the stairs.

"What is it?" I groaned.

"A couple Taint are fighting some cops! HQ says they sound like real big ones!"

No doubt about it, things were getting worse. Since when did Taint actually pick fights with cops in the middle of the street?

I rolled out bed as quick as I could and was kind of proud of myself for thinking to make sure I still had my belt before I met Faye outside and we jumped on our bikes. Focusing on the taillights as she led the way through the streets, running reds at every mentionable intersection we came to.

The reason why we didn't pick up any cops on the way was clear a couple blocks before we got there. It seemed like the entire four-lane street we'd turned onto was nothing but a sea of black and white metal topped with glowing red and blue beacons. Gunshots and the short flashes of light that accompanied them came from near the corner, where something big and black had picked up a squad car and tossed it through the air to land on top of another one.

Then, from the other direction, something flew by and a green beam shot down at the street. An explosion went up and so did the limp forms of a few cops as the shape firing the ray swooped by. My eyes burned from how much Taint the monsters' bodies radiated until they had a chance to adjust.

Nobody had to tell me what to do. My hand was already at my buckle, even as Faye's armor had already finished flashing into being around her. There was that feeling of protection, then of power as my own arrayed itself over me, and then we were both off, jumping from squad car to squad car in two different directions. Me, toward the huge dark shape that had picked up another car already, and Faye toward the flying shape starting another devastating pass.

A few cops looked up as I jumped over their heads, but all of them stopped shooting at their target when I landed on the hood of the car nearest the Taint. It tossed the car right at me, and would've pulverized the cops crouched behind me if not me too. Would've, if I hadn't thrown up the most solid rectangle I ever managed in front of me. The vehicular missile slammed into it, and I could feel a car slamming into my brain.

Through the haze of pain I took just a second to size up my enemy. This Taint looked like some kind of huge bug, a beetle really, with big plates of brown armor cover its body and a gigantic mandible sticking out of either side of its head. Its gigantic arms ended in massive hands that looked like they could crush my head even with my power suit on.

It looked me and seemed to recognize me, or at least recognize me for what I was. It jammed its mandibles into the ground and in seconds had dug a tunnel into the street. As fast as I could I formed another rectangular shield, thicker than before, and forced it into the ground between me and where the Taint had been as hard as I could manage in my condition. In less than a second I could feel my shield smashed through. I turned and jumped to my left just before the car I'd been crouching on went flying into the air.

The Beetle Taint was standing beside a huge gaping hole in the middle of the street and it let out this chittering noise like Cicada Taint had earlier that night. Except it was deeper, stronger. Even angrier. I formed a couple triangular projectiles and flung them at it, but they just hit its armor and faded away into nothing. The cops that had stopped shooting when I showed up started again now, doing about as much good as I had.

The Taint chittered angrily and jumped for me, but it was stronger than it was fast and I jumped right over it. Suddenly its head jerked around and grabbed me by the leg with its mandibles, pulling me to the ground along with it. The mandibles dug in tighter until they'd cut right through my boot. I screamed and more out of reflex than anything else I formed a sharp, curving shape like one of the ones in my claw attack and hacked into Beetle Taint's side for all I was worth.

That got its attention. Black goop sprayed out of its new wound, and it chittered louder and angrier than ever. At least the mandibles loosened for just the second I needed to pull my leg out. Beetle Taint lunged at me and I dodged, my back smacking into the side of a police car. Beetle Taint flew past me all the same, pulverizing another car ahead of it. Behind me the cops were falling back, probably convinced at last how out of their league they were here. Somewhere I heard another car exploded, and hoped Faye was doing all right with the other Taint.

Then something that I hadn't been expecting at all happened. Instead of turning around to attack me again, Beetle Taint fell down on its back and curled its hind legs forward to meet its head, forming a big brown armored ball. It rolled toward me, making a sound like thunder as it did. I knew I should've run, or jumped, or dived out of the way.

Somehow, I didn't want to. Something inside me said I was done dancing around with these things. As Beetle Taint rolled closer and smashed car out of the way like it was made of cardboard, I made my move.

Suddenly I formed another curved construct in front of me, this one thick and wide. A ramp. The construct shuddered as Beetle Taint thundered into it, but held. The Taint shot up into the air, and before it could think about unrolling and attacking again I went after it.

I crouched, ignored my savaged leg as it tried to seize up on me, then jumped with all the power I had. On my way up I concentrated all my willpower into a very simple but-I hoped-very devastating construct. A simple, straight but very sharp rectangular form I held in one hand. Almost like a sword, but I wasn't quite there yet. As soon as I was close enough I stabbed it into Beetle Taint's side, the one already wounded from my previous attack.

Beetle Taint let out a rattling scream but I dug my mind-forged weapon into its body as deep as I could. It tried to grab me with its mandibles again but I twisted myself to put my feet on top of them and used them to vault up again. As I did my ascent put more force into my slash still, until the blade exited through Beetle Taint's thorax.

I wasn't going to wait for it to wait for it to let me hear its pain again. I let the sword fade, then with all the strength I still had I shaped a transparent shell around Beetle Taint's body, spreading those terrible arms and legs. Within seconds transparent shafts were starting to spring up all over the case I had trapped Beetle Taint in, and other shafts off of those. I had to wait for just the right moment as we fell back to Earth, because the longer I took the more damage this would do.

But the longer I took, the harder it would be to pull off.

I could see the dents on the hood of the police car underneath us, and that was when I made my move. "Piercing Infamy," I whispered, and every crystalline branch twisting out of the case shot inward. Immediately bits of Beetle Taint were flying everywhere and I found myself diving straight through a ball of black goop. I tried to stretch my hands out in front of myself to catch myself on the hood of the car and vault off, but instead I sank into the car up to my elbows.

The hope that nobody in my line of work was around hit me.

Awkwardly I pulled myself out, then started looking around for Faye and the Taint she'd been fighting. A flying shape with a number of buzzing, transparent wings flew across the street away from me, and a familiar figure in a black and white suit up and delivered a spinning kick to its face. Faye.

It was knocked back, but swooped around in an arc and came back toward her, this time with two globes on its front that I guessed were its eyes glowing a dazzling green. Another green ray shot from them and Faye vaulted out of the way, but the Taint followed her. I was jumping from car to car to help when finally Faye was a little too slow getting out of the way of the ray. She screamed and was blown fifty feet through the air. She didn't get back up.

The Taint saw me crouching there with its gigantic eyes, and flew at me next. In the second I took to size it up I noticed how thin its body was, including its spindly little arms and legs. It had four transparent wings, and looked like a giant dragonfly. It spun at me, eyes glowing again, and I tried to work up the energy for one last attack.

"Tora's Claws," I whispered, and three sharpened arcs formed above my head but the Taint turned suddenly and hovered, beating its wings fiercely in my direction. A high-pitched buzzing filled my ears, then I was blown off my feet and my constructs faded. I landed hard on my stomach, and then something, probably part of a police car, landed on my back. I wasn't really hurt, but I couldn't move, either.

The Dragonfly Taint hovered over me, and I almost thought it was laughing, but as I looked up at it I saw something else floating there. A shifting…mass of rolling liquid. Dark red liquid. It surged toward Dragonfly Taint, shearing threw one wing as it did. Then before the monster could defend itself, the mass solidified into a human form with a dagger clutched in each hand.

I had yet to meet any kind of Taint that used a weapon, and when the newcomer whipped around and sliced the Dragonfly Taint's head off I knew who it was.

"Hello, Versa."

"Hello, Miss Moore. Still fighting the good fight?" He hoisted the car off my back easily.

"Would you mind not calling me that?" I grumbled. "You picked your side. You took the risks." He tweaked a switch on his belt buckle and started sucking up the slime from Dragonfly Taint's remains.

"Damn it," I muttered and hobbled off to look for the corpse of my kill. Or rather, the blob of jelly my attack had turned it into. All I found was a few mangled bits of flesh, though, and a trail of dark ooze leading into a storm drain. Great, two dead Taint and nothing to show for it on my side.

It was off to check on Faye then, but she groaned and squirmed as I came up to her. "Did you get that other one?" she groaned.

"No, but Versa did," I said. I looked up, and was a little surprised to see Versa was still there. Even more surprised to see him looking back at me.

"We've got plenty of battles still to fight," he said. Then he turned into a roiling red ball and slipped out of sight. I stared after him for a minute, but Faye grabbed my shoulder.

"Come on. I just got a call, more Taint showed up a couple streets over," she said.

Somehow, I wasn't surprised.


	19. Chapter 19

Kamen Rider Altis Chapter 19

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. But don't be afraid to ask.

Sleep.

That was my only desire.

Faye must've noticed, and checked in with HQ, then came over to tell me to break off and get some rest.

My suit would've been covered in gore if we didn't make a point in collecting every last bit to make the Taint it came from the last produced by that particular batch. Instead it was covered with dents and scratches from the last two battles I'd managed on pound through. Although while fighting the Deer Taint I'd gotten pretty well pounded myself. My ribs still ached when I hit the reversal switch on my belt.

Faye was still breathing hard when we got back to the bikes and peeled away to let the cops take over, now that there was nothing left to do but notify the next of kin.

I sighed, and was glad Faye couldn't hear me over the sound of her own engine, let alone mine. We were doing this every night, with more and more cases every time, but still we weren't any closer to finding out about that thing Altis and I had seen underneath the old rec center that one time. The thing that had been talking to the Taint leader. Or one of them, anyway.

What was it? Where was it hiding? Why was it turning people into murderous monsters? Did those questions even have answers that a human mind could comprehend?

I stopped at the safe house, but Faye kept going. At that point, I really didn't care. I put my bike away and went inside. The sun was already painting the buildings gold as I went inside.

The first chair I passed reached out and grabbed me. The urge to sleep right then and there started to wash over me, but one of the things I remembered from one of the group's informational videos was not to sleep in weird positions. Aches and sore spots could come back and distract you later one, which wasn't something you generally wanted happening when a mutant deer tried to kick your ribs in.

But I realized I didn't want to sleep. Not just yet, anyway. I got out my cell phone, dialed a number I'd only dialed about three times ever, and waited for the signaling to stop.

"Hello?" a gruff, groggy voice answered.

"Mike? Is that you?"

"Who…oh God, what do you want?" he grumbled.

I didn't waste any time trying to make nice with him. "How's Altis?"

"What? Oh, he's…he's up and around again. He actually went back into the city about two hours ago."

I nodded at the phone, too tired to notice what I was doing. "Where was he going, exactly?"

"He didn't tell me. Are you done?" I closed my phone to answer him.

The mattress creaked as I dropped onto it, but I barely heard it. How did Altis keep his drive after all the battles, all the lives he'd had to end? Knowing his own end got closer and closer every time he changed to his ultimate form to fight the most powerful of the Taint? Could a person's entire existence really be taken over by a single desire like that?

I wasn't even sure I could tell anyone what my existence was about anymore. I slept all day, fought monsters, and if I still had the energy I spun what little I'd seen and learned since last time into an article for a yellow journal read in a single state. No replies had even come after I sent in the last three. My coworkers probably either hadn't left their houses since the Taint were appearing more and more regularly, or skipped town entirely.

That was the difference between them and me, though. I was sticking around because I was part of something more than publishing low-grade trash, now. They needed everyone they could get, even someone they'd tried to warn away from their battles in the past. And damn it, I was doing pretty well, considering how long I'd been trying. Nobody mastered a new skill overnight, and I doubted monster-fighting was any easier than playing a guitar or riding a motorcycle.

But I wasn't going to be any good the next time they needed me if I didn't get some sleep, and it was probably going to be sooner than later. A lot sooner.

That was probably about when I fell asleep, because the next thing I knew I was looking over at Jo. My sister, who'd been turned into a snake Taint that Versa had strangled to death before my eyes. She was standing across the street from me with that guy she'd been going out with, the one who turned her on to Taint, hand in hand. She saw me staring at them and waved with a dazzling smile. Her boyfriend noticed me too and nodded with an innocuous smile on his own lips.

I tried to yell at them, but my voice didn't seem to carry across the street despite the fact that it was almost totally empty of traffic. They kept walking, and I started to run to try to catch up. To warn Jo that her boyfriend was really a monster who planned to make her into another.

It was pointless. They didn't hear me, they just kept right on goind. And the faster I ran, the more I seemed to fall behind. Then Jo and her boyfriend faded so that I could see right through them. In another second they were just little puffs of smoke, and in another second those were gone too, carried away on winds I didn't even feel.

Then all of a sudden a haggard man in a ratty overcoat walked past me. It took a second for the sunken eyes and cheeks to register. It was Altis. He was already turning transparent, and blew away on the wind the second I reached out to touch him. As he did I heard a hollow voice whisper something in my ear.

"Death is the greatest mercy."

It had been a long time since I'd bothered to think about that saying of his, the one he always brought out before he went for the kill.

Was it the death of the person he was saving from being a murderous fiend he was talking about, though, or his own inevitable demise? The one brought on by the changes to his body that allowed him to fight back against this evil substance in a way no-one else could.

While I was thinking about that, I could feel the wind all of a sudden. Then I spotted my hands, and realized I could see right through them. Just like with Jo, and Altis.

The wind blew harder and I couldn't feel my legs anymore. But somebody reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders. It was someone with long, dark hair…

"Abby?"

Then my cell phone was blasting in my ear.

It wasn't the usual ringtone. It was louder, faster. More urgent. I stumbled over and grabbed it.

"Hello?"

"Madeleine!" It was Gloria Song's voice, but I needed a moment to recognize it because I'd never heard worked up before. "Suit up! A group of-"

She didn't get to finish. Suddenly the entire house shook and the phone fell out of my hand. It shook again and tossed me into the wall. By then I wasn't even thinking about getting out through the stairs. I just made sure I had my belt on and jumped out the closest window.

A huge crack opened in the ground between the house I'd been in and the next one, and there was this sound like a toothpick factory caving in as they both slipped from their foundations and started falling in. That wasn't what caught my attention. It was the figures climbing out, most of them humanoid but their extra features still solidifying as they reached the surface. My eyes had to shut down their scanning for energy levels so they didn't burn out, so many Taint were pouring out of the crack.

You don't have to guess what I did next. In a heartbeat I had my armor on and was concentrating as hard as I could with how recently I'd woken up. A rough sword formed in my hands, and I had to hold it tight to keep it solid. The first Taint-what it was based on I didn't even look to see-lunged at me and got my transparent blade right between the eyes.

There was no time to stop, no time to wait and see if my attack had brought him down. The blade slid back out, the Taint fell and the next was already on top of me. This one looked like some kind of fly, with big compound eyes and see-through wings. With my mind I forged a sharper edge to my weapon and cleaved through one wing. The Fly Taint spun out of control with the loss of that wing, but as soon as it was out of sight it wasn't a priority anymore. Two Taint rushed me at once, one looking like a big starfish rolling on its five giant arms and the other having a mass of writhing green tentacles where its head should've been.

The Starfish Taint aimed itself at me and I sidestepped just in time for the thing to thunder past without hitting me. The tentacles of its buddy stretched out for me like whips and I dove forward and went into a somersault to get under them. As soon as I was close enough I unrolled and stabbed the tentacle-head Taint in its gut. I could feel my blade slip straight through to jab out the back. It slumped over dead, and out of habit I hit the switch to suck up its essence.

I stayed low to the ground for the moment, because I noticed that while there were seemingly dozens of Taint swarming out of the crack, they ignored me while I hunkered behind the corpse of their comrade.

The wave was starting to thin out and I let my sword fade and sent a few saw-blades at the backs of the nearest Taint. The thudded into the monsters' backs, and the Taint howled in pain, but just kept running. One of them, studded with red feathers, spread its wings and flew off.

I stumbled after them, but had no idea what I'd do if I caught up to any. There were way too many Taint for me to fight, and it seemed like they had no interest in fighting me anyway. What was going on?

Behind me the house cracked and slipped further into the ground. It didn't matter. More monsters than I'd seen since beginning my quest to find Altis were invading Rittersburg all at once. I hoped I wasn't the only one getting on their bike to ride into battle just then.

The Taint were splitting into smaller groups every time they hit a junction in the road. There was just the one of me, so I kept following the biggest, loudest one as it got smaller and less chaotic. The group I'd been following split into its individual members as it hit a major street, and I sped up and rammed the nearest one with my front tire. It squawked and went down. The biggest saw blade I'd ever conjured was in my hand, then it was in that Taint's back, then it was dug into street on the other side.

Then it was gone, and there were still about twenty other Taint running up and down the street, smashing through windows and cars. And people who couldn't get away fast enough. Another Fly Taint, this one with all its wings, flew after a wailing teenage girl, and I whipped up something smaller, quicker than the usual saws.

A couple of small triangular darts flew at the Fly Taint and pierced its back, a few slicing through its wings. It crashed into a storefront and its would-be victim managed to run off without any more Taint coming after her. At least, not among the ones I could see, And that number was still shrinking as the Taint ran rampant and smashed their way into stores and chased other people down alleys. Which one was I supposed to go after first?

I caught sight of another Bull Taint, like the last one I'd fought. Four arms and two huge racks of horns and everything. Except these ones looked even sharper, somehow. I formed a spear and jammed it into the monster's back, and before I was even sure what kind of reaction I'd gotten it turned, knocked me off my bike, and carried me into the front of a building. It knocked the wind out of me and my limbs went numb for a second while I slumped to the ground. I could see the Taint that had creamed me, and it was I was lucky it hadn't gotten in a direct hit.

The Bull Taint lunged at me headfirst again, and I threw the thickest rectangular shield I could in the split-second I had before it crushed me. The shield shattered, and I really couldn't tell you I was surprised. But if I couldn't defend myself, I'd be damned if I wasn't going to at least go down swinging.

I rolled out of its way, only catching some concrete dust sent flying by Bull Taint ramming the building. In the heat of the moment, I was somehow able to think of conserving energy for a battle that looked to have no end whatsoever, and decided against a Piercing Infamy on one monster out of dozens. Hey, I never said I was an ace at the whole monster-fighting thing.

Instead of power, I went for anatomy.

The Bull Taint turned around fast for something as big as it was, but before it could finished I slammed the heaviest cube I could manage right into its lower elbow. Something crunched and the Taint bellowed. Another one, the elbow of the arm above. Another crunch, but this time the Bull Taint snorted angrily at me. The arms on one side dangled uselessly. It charged me again. I waited until I could smell its breath through my suit, then I did something it didn't quite expect.

A column of force jumped out of the ground and slammed into the Bull Taint's chest. I made it tilt, tossing the surprised monster into a building, then with all my concentration lifted the column into the air and brought it down on Bull Taint's chest. It gasped once (well, it sounded like a gasp), then stopped moving.

Great, one Taint down. I counted eight more on that street alone as I ran toward the closest one. This one looked like a tiger, but with dark blue fur between its stripes instead of orange. It didn't even seem to see me as I ran toward it, instead it jumped fifteen feet off the ground and clung to the side of a building with its claws. I jumped up, forming spikes on my knuckles for when I got close enough to land a blow, but the Tiger Taint just batted me out of the air. I went careening toward a streetlight, sliced it in half with my hip and bounced off the street a few times.

The Tiger Taint jumped off its little perch and landed on an old red car. It snarled and ripped the roof off, and with one hand grabbed a middle-aged woman who'd been cowering in the back seat. She screamed and I rolled to my feet and jumped at the Tiger Taint, but in the instant I was in the air black slime flowed from the Taint palm and into the woman's cheeks. It dropped her, jumped off the car and ran on all fours away.

The woman it'd just attacked writhed on the ground and screamed. Little ripples were forming in her skin, and then she just collapsed in the middle of the street. The ripples in her skin turned black, and then the blackness started to spread.

They were creating more Taint monsters, but somehow they didn't seem to need to tempt the victims anymore. Was that the real purpose of the strengthened Taint we'd run into in that cave when we found the source? Not just to put up a better fight against people like me and Altis?

And Versa?

Focus, Madeleine, I told myself. The Taint were thinning out as they ran into any building or down any connecting street where they saw a potential new convert. I had to slow this down as much as I could until someone called and told me what the plan was.

The Tiger Taint seemed as good a place to start as any. As it jumped on in search of its next victim I threw up a rectangular wall in its way. It slammed into it and hit the ground, then turned to face me. It lunged, like a giant blue and black missile straight for me. I waited until the absolute last second to put my plan into action.

"Tora's Claws," I whispered, not sure if I had the strength to make them work. That was why I'd waited until I didn't have manifest them at a distance. The curving "claws" of force solidified in front of me then flew out in an arc that cut through the Tiger Taint. It didn't even have time to roar before the hunks landed in the street and started to turn back into slime.

But I didn't even have time to collect it before something stabbed me in the back. I staggered but pushed myself off the side of a car and managed to spin around to see what attacked me. It was another insect Taint, with fuzzy yellow and black stripes and a stinger as long as a harpoon. Not that I really knew how long that was. But swarming around it were a pack of other bees each a foot long from head to stinger. I had the feeling the blood dripping off of one of them was mine.

This Taint chittered something to its swarm, I guessed a command to attack, before they could obey something swooped out of the sky and plunged something sharp and green through the largest Taint's torso. Hovering there with the aid of bright green wings was Altis. He kicked the Taint off his sword and it splattered on the pavement, its swarm dropping out of the air and shrinking to the size of normal bees.

"Are you all right?" he asked, nothing evident from his tone.

"I think so. It tingles a little around where it got me, but it's fading," I told him. "What are you doing here? I don't suppose you came to save me."

"I was trying to see where all these Taint were coming, and I guessed that crack a little ways away. I saw you in trouble too, though, and I thought I could use another pair of hands when I go down there."

"What about them?" I pointed at the few Taint that were still in sight, and vanishing fast, and the couple of contorting victims they'd already found and left behind.

Altis shook his armored head. "There are too many, and this isn't the only place where they've come up. The best thing we can do right now is go back to where they revealed themselves, and see if we can locate the source."

There was a certain logic to that. I got to my bike and he took to the air again. A minute later we stopped next to the fault in the ground they'd crawled out of, and I thought hard for a second to get my eyes to switch back into their automated mode. They automatically adjusted to the darkness and I could make out little ledges and handholds they must've used to climb out. It would be hard doing it down, since I was never big on heights, but if all the Taint were up here, with us people…

Altis let his wings fade away and started climbing down. Probably didn't want to go flying full-speed into an entire nest of Taint, and I didn't blame him.

About fifteen minutes later I let go of the little ledge I was holding onto and fell the last eight feet to the bottom of the crevice. Just as I was expecting, a couple different tunnels led up to it, and the footprints of the Taint who'd come up through it were still warm. The biggest tunnel with the most prints seemed the most logical way to go so Altis and I followed that one, jogging down the snaking tunnel as it angled downward.

After a while, tubes filled with some kind of dark green liquid started to line the walls. Dark green liquid, and human bodies. Some were already starting to gurgle and push against the tube. Altis walked up to the nearest one and stabbed his sword right through the occupant's chest.

Somehow it still seemed heartless, even knowing Altis was doing the person inside the tube a favor. At least they could meet their maker without any murders they weren't even responsible for on their record.

Altis went down one side of the tunnel, impaling the tube's occupants while I formed a sword of my own and went down the other one doing the same. I cringed every time I brought back my weapon, but I reminded myself if I didn't there'd be another Taint monster above soon, turning everyone it could catch into more like itself.

The fifth time I stabbed a helpless person, I started to notice how cold it was getting. Enough that I could feel it even through my suit. I wanted to say the first time I'd put on my suit I'd felt invincible and this was some kind of sign that something was really wrong, but after all I've seen I don't feel like sugarcoating what happened.

Altis looked up at me as I looked over at him to see how he was dealing with the sudden cold. He didn't shiver or make a sound. Pretty much what I'd come to expect of him. Maybe the Taint had infested him so deeply he didn't even have nerve endings anymore.

"Stay alert," he said, totally impassive.

"Yeah, thanks. I was ignoring the fact that a hundred Taint crawled out of here not half an hour ago," I said.

He didn't say anything to that either. Probably because a few steps later I felt a weird kind of pulling at the back of my mind and found myself stumbling toward the end of the tunnel. I couldn't look away from the opening in the distance, fog pouring out it that came up to my knees. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Altis walking along half-bent forward just like I was.

Somehow I could feel something was down there, and it knew about us and was dragging us into its lair. My blood thickened in my veins and seemed to writhe around inside me with a will of its own. I tried to scream out in pain, but couldn't find my voice.

"Maddy?" someone called down the tunnel. I heard running footfalls, and then someone pulled on my arm. "What are you guys doing?"

Abby. Oh lord, what was she doing down there? She pulled on my arm, but she wasn't as strong as I was. Not anymore. Whatever force was dragging me and Altis forward pulled my arm forward too, breaking her grasp and sending her tumbling to the floor.

Then my entire body tingled painfully and seized up like that time I'd stuck my fingernail in a socket when I was a kid. I went flying off my feet, hurtling forward to the end of the tunnel. My eyes went totally dark, and I felt like I was twisting through the air over and over for hours. It felt colder, then warmer, than even colder than during that last surge. Then I suddenly hit the ground, bounced, and my eyes detected light again.

I wished they hadn't.


	20. Chapter 20

Kamen Rider Altis Final Chapter

Disclaimer: I don't own or make any claim of ownership of the Kamen Rider Series. Kamen Rider Altis and its characters belong to me, and may not be used without express permission. But don't be afraid to ask.

It's hard to even describe what I saw after I finally felt the ground underneath me again. All I could see, even with my eyes compensating for the darkness, was a huge shapeless mass with legs and arms of all sizes and lengths sticking out of it, and blazing blue eyes gazing out from every surface. Even the palms of hands, elbows, fingers…

And the thing radiated so much pure Taint one of my eyes popped and the scanner in the other shut off just in time to avoid the same fate.

The thing focused all of its uncountable eyes on us, and let out a strange wheezing sound like it was wearily annoyed that we'd stumbled into its lair and now it had to wake up and kill us.

Instead it let out another noise, a raspy howl-gargle that made me imagine gobbets of some unspeakable slime flying around and collecting in the sides of some monstrously huge throat somewhere inside the mass.

Out of the fog swirling around our legs, bulges formed, and then out of them arose about six of those things I'd been thinking of as Taint leaders. Those monsters even more powerful than the animal mutants, with bodies made of black rock and limbs of some kind of knobbly silver flesh.

They rushed toward us, and it was all I could do to get to my wobbly feet. Whatever had pulled us into the monster's lair had left me and probably Altis with some kind of weird jetlag. But they didn't attack. Instead they grabbed me and Altis by the arms and dragged him upright. There were no cries of victory or laughter at what they planned to do with us. They made no sound at all.

They dragged us up to their leader, or mother, or whatever the hell it really was. Maybe a third of its eyes focused on the two of us.

And then, Altis and I weren't standing in a foggy cavern anymore.

I wasn't me, or even Tora anymore.

I was running on all fours across a rooftop as someone in dark green and yellow armor chased me, running as hard as they could to keep up. It looked like one of Altis's friends, one I dimly recalled seeing on a monitor in the base once upon a time. He'd come looking for me, but I'd taken him by surprise and was far ahead of him as he pursued me. He had no conception at all of how much of the Life I'd hidden there, giving it a chance to find humans to infest and breed more of us.

My pursuer aimed a weapon on his wrist at me and fired but a shape descended from the sky and knocked him off balance just before I heard the roaring retort of the shot. It was a giant condor, with wings a good ten feet across. He grabbed my attacker, flew off over the edge of the roof and let the armored figure go. He screamed as he fell, even though the fall probably wouldn't kill him. As fragile as humans were, this particular sort was pretty tough.

The winged savior of mine kept going after dropping our enemy off the building. He had plenty of others to help create more of our kind. Some distant corner of my mind tried to tell me this was wrong, and even feebly tried to project the face of a sunken-eyed human on his beaked face. I knew that was his true face, and his purpose should have been totally contrary to ours, but I just jumped to the next rooftop and set off to find another place to plant some of the Life. Our kind must be spread, and to do that it needed to absorb the spark of life from others. Nothing else mattered.

My mind felt like putty for a moment, and then I wasn't racing to plant more of the Life. I was still running on all fours, but I was right on the heels of a ragged-looking human as they valiantly tried to pretend they could outrun one of us.

Valiant, but futile. I thrust my legs down and jumped, pouncing at the human and brought him down. My fangs sank into his shoulder, and I let him keep his throat for a few minutes to listen to his pathetic screams.

It was wonderful. The power we held over these pathetic creatures. Even the ones who'd thought they could devise a way to fight on our level had fallen before us. With them, this entire world. Now, the only thing on the Source's mind was to find new worlds, and start again…

Of course, moving to another world was nothing to the Source.

Somehow I knew that I used to think of those like myself, and the very thing that made us what we were as Taint. A vulgar, ignorant name produced by a vulgar, ignorant race. One only fit to give us the life it had received in some kind of cosmic mistake.

The condor and I joined a long line of our fellows passing through a shimmering blue and white curtain. On the other side lay a new world. Who knew what forms our new brothers and sisters would take there? And the world after that? And the world after that?

Our turn came, and then I felt myself almost flying, twisting end over end as we traveled to that new, untouched world.

"Strangler."

Strangler that word used to mean something to me, but I could hardly remember what. Then…

…then one of the Taint leaders next to me screamed and let go of me. A yellow tendril was coiled around its neck, or whatever that space below its neck was. Chips of black rock fell off as that tendril tightened, and I looked over my shoulder to see it was attached to Versa's gauntlet.

"Hey there, you two! I'm crashing your party," he said with that same easy smugness he'd had the night he thanked me for breaking Altis out of jail. "Well, me and my little friends."

Then something big and dark with a mace instead of a hand smashed the arm of one of the Taint leaders holding Altis. Altis swung his fist at the other one, caught it right in the mouth and was able to pull his arm free as it staggered back. He was gone for one of his crystals when I formed a short, studded hammer in my newly freed arm and brought it down on the shoulder of the Taint leader still holding me.

I didn't even get a chance to finish the job. Another one of those big, dark things grabbed the Taint leader and threw it at the shapeless monstrosity dominating the cavernrn. It punctured an eye and the monster, the Source, screeched and thrashed around with all its arms scrabbling at the floor of the cavern. More Taint leaders seemed to grow out of the ground around it, but more big, dark guys surged past us and slammed into them. Without being able to see much in the dim light of the portal, they were hard to make out, but Each had some kind of weapon jutting out somewhere. Like the mace for a fist I'd already seen, one had an axe-blade sticking out of his head, and one started to sprout a new arm within seconds of a Taint leader's beam taking his old one off. Even as I watched another one's legs bent backward until they looked like a goat's, then it jumped at one of the Taint leaders and smashed a hoof into its face.

I was still reeling from what I'd just seen. What I would've been, if Abby hadn't been there that day and pulled the Taint off me just in time. Which was probably why I'd seen that in the first place, that Taint still in my system. Had it been trying to claim me again? Would that have been easier because I'd already been touched by it?

Black rock chips pelted me for a second as Altis smashed his Breaker hammer into one of the Taint leaders' chest and knocked it down for just a second. The jetlag had passed during our little trance, so as it was getting back up I whipped up a saw blade, the thinnest, sharpest one I could, and buried it in the back of the monster's head. It turned to face me, and I created a big, heavy sphere of force that I slammed into its torso as Altis got it from behind with his hammer. This time it went down and didn't get back up.

Altis looked around the cavern, taking in the sight of Versa and his hulking allies pushing back against the…Taint overseers as green beams flew from monstrous fingertips and the horde of barely-visible mutant soldiers pushed back against them. One of Versa's friends fired some kind of glob from his shoulder that enveloped the head of one of the Taint, taking it down. Another was spinning like a tornado, holding out his axe blade hands and mowing into another pair of Taint. As they went down another pair of Taint came at him from one side his arm morphed and split into a mass of tentacles that reached out and grabbed them.

Then Altis grabbed me and we weaved through the chaos of the battle toward the Source. I had to interpose a shield between myself and a Taint that shot a beam at us as we went past, but in the next second one of those mutating soldiers had tackled him.

"We have to attack that thing and kill it now," Altis said gravely. "Before it has another chance to try to take over our minds."

"Could it do that because we've got some of it in us?" I asked.

"Probably. But I don't plan to give it the chance to try again." As he said that, Altis already had his super belt in one hand and snapped it on.

"Guess we'd better," I said, nothing more profound coming to mind. I would've thought I'd feel something more poetic come to mind under circumstances like those, with everything we'd fought for finally coming to a head. Maybe I was too tired to do my job properly.

Or maybe I knew how this would end if Altis put that belt on.

He clicked it shut and slid his four crystals into its four slots. As the last one clicked into place, the belt announced "Surpass!" White and gold armor started crawling up Altis's body from his belt, but instead of standing proud and powerful he sank to one knee and clutched at his chest even as thicker armor covered it.

"You okay?" I asked a little nervously. He looked up at me and I could feel him glaring through his mask.

"It doesn't matter, help me do this," he choked, then got up and ran for the Source.

The sounds of the melee behind us faded into the background as the shapeless monster loomed larger and larger over us. All of those glowing blue eyes focused on us as one, but I didn't even notice. I could feel the power rolling off Altis like I had the first time he'd transformed in my presence, but this time something was different. The energy was…harder, somehow. More focused. But I couldn't stop thinking about how it was feeding on his flagging life energy to feed the power he was about to unleash on the Source.

The misshapen horror started to give off a low hum that immediately started rising in pitch. Behind us inhuman cries went up, and a glance over my shoulder showed two of the Taint overseers firing those beams from their fingers and taking off the head of one of Versa's reinforcements. Another pair of beams ripped into his chest, taking him down before he could recover. Two others grabbed another of those morphing soldiers and ripped him limb from limb. It was as if the noise was making the Taint fight harder.

"Focus, Madeleine!" Altis barked and yanked me toward the Source. Its eyes were still focused on us, but it made no move to defend itself. Altis formed his glowing harpoon and hurled it at the monster, but it shattered into glowing blue fragments before it even got close. Altis formed a sword next and jumped at the Source, but something seemed to catch him in midair, and he hung in the middle of his jump, arms and legs flailing until he was tossed backward and almost crashed into me as he did.

Buzzsaw after buzzsaw formed from my mind and flew at the Source, but every one of them shattered against something I couldn't see between me and the Source. "Tora's Claws!" I yelled, because I couldn't imagine using a Piercing Infamy on a target that big. The arced constructs whipped through the air toward the Source, but cracked as they got closer and finally disintegrated before they could make contact either. The humming rose again, and then I could feel it.

It was a wave of pure force emanating from the Source itself. It grew stronger and picked me up off my feet to land next to Altis.

"We'll have to combine our power," he groaned. "It might fry us in the process, but it's the only way."

"Not if it's just the two of you," a leering voice replied. I didn't need to look up to know it was Versa. He hooked us both under the arms and hoisted us to our feet. "You may have had the edge in power, my friend, but never in finesse.

"Well. Isn't this dramatically appropriate," I muttered.

"You should be glad we're making it so easy on you, Miss Moore," Versa said in that same leering voice. "What do you think's going to sound more dramatic in print, that three bold heroes worked as one to destroy this nameless abomination, or it wiped them out and continued its spread across the world unimpeded?"

I sighed and ignored him. The sounds of battle were getting louder, and closer, but I didn't dare look to see how far it was. "What do we do, Altis?"

"The Surpass System's strongest attack is called the Rider Union. It can channel the powers of several of us through one, and magnify the energy into a single attack," Altis explained. "I think Versa's stuff is enough like ours that he could join in, if he wanted."

"I already did, or hadn't you noticed?" Versa replied.

"And you've used this before?" I asked.

"No."

A huge black claw suddenly fell through the air toward and us, and we scattered. I stumbled as the ground shook from the impact for a second. The Source thrashed out with those countless of all shapes and sizes as it dragged itself toward us. Its bulk brushed against the roof of the cavern, sending rocks and dust falling as it did.

"Now!" Altis yelled. "Get over here! Focus on me!" We ran to his side and I held onto his shoulder, not sure what exactly this involved. Versa gave me a look and did the same.

"Sure, Altis. For old time's sake," Versa said, the leer still there, but softened to the point he almost sounded sincere.

"Rider…Union," Altis said hesitantly, but I get the feeling that it wasn't hesitation from using such a powerful attack so much as, well, this being it.

As soon as he said it I could feel the warmth, the energy of everything that was me being drained away, funneled through my contact with Altis. It took everything I had not to let go, but I didn't. A blazing golden ray shot from Altis's gauntleted hands and burned right into one of the Source's eyes. The humming it was giving off continued, but weakened.

In the light from Altis's attack I could see that the Source had some kind of black scaly body, but it melted or scorched wherever the ray touched. It tried to lash out at him with a giant claw but he just aimed the ray at the claw, burning right through the limb.

The ray seemed to lengthen and I realized it's power was indeed being magnified and with its powers, its size. Altis played it over the Source's body, but within moments he'd gone from doing surface damage to wielding the ray like a blade. It carved hunks ten feet high from the bloated body of the Source and sending black ooze spraying from the wounds.

I stole a glance back at the rest of the cavern and saw the Taint overseers were slowing down and Versa's friends or whatever were starting to gain the upper hand again as those that remained pressed their attack. Two of them grabbed a pair of the Taint overseers and smashed their heads together, one rocky head snapping right off. Another group of them knocked an overseer down and pulled its arms and legs off while it howled in protest.

"More! Focus harder!" Altis yelled. The Source was still trying to give off its hum but it was weaker still by now, with Altis slicing huge hunks of its body off. About half the eyes that were even still connected had gone dark. It was lashing out at us with half a dozen arms at once and Altis had to sweep the ray back and forth wildly to cut off each one before they could get close enough to hit us.

"It's getting weaker!" Altis shouted.

"I hope so!" I groaned, almost collapsing. "I can't…keep this up much longer!" My strength faded and I started to fall back, but suddenly someone caught me and pushed me back up to hold onto Altis's shoulder.

"Hang on, Maddy. We're almost out of this," a familiar yet surprising voice advised me.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I screamed. Not that I wasn't glad to see her.

"Saving your butt. Again," she grinned. And she was right. She was completely saving my bacon. Again. I started to wonder if she was some kind of guardian angel, showing up when I was about to get splattered. Whatever the case, I was glad I could call her my friend.

"Death is the greatest mercy…Rider…Nova!" Altis gasped out. Another wave swept through me and drained the little energy I had left, but before I slumped onto my back I saw the ray Altis was firing widen until it was eight feet across. The Source stopped relaying the humming sound, and screeched in agony. It ate right through the monster, and with one last horrible shriek what was left of the Source exploded into a million jagged bits.

Altis was blown backwards by the recoil from that last attack. One of the monster's claws nailed Versa and carried him fifteen feet before they landed. Abby ducked and I lunged to cover her with whatever protection I could offer. I was afraid for a second the monster's bits would melt and then skitter away like its children whenever they died, but instead they were dissolving, filling the cavern with a thin black vapor.

I scrambled over to Versa, but I wasn't halfway there when I saw his left arm missing and blood oozing from the socket. "Oh my God, we have to get you out of here," I gasped.

"Don't worry about it," he half-laughed, half-choked. "I'm no good in my line of work like this anyway. Thanks, Miss Moore. You helped us out more than you probably realize."

"Don't joke around."

"I'm being totally serious. About everything. Get out of here, Miss Moore. Write your big story about how you helped save the world. Nobody'll deny you've earned a higher station than this," Versa replied.

The morphing soldiers who were still standing were polishing off the last of the Taint overseers as he said this, then once their enemies weren't moving anymore, Versa gasped out, "Omicron Fats."

Abby and I ducked back at what happened next. The nearest soldier exploded in a burst of goop and flying limbs. Then the one nearest him, and the next, and so on. Rock shards and dust were falling from the ceiling by the fourth wall.

"Let's go!" I yelled.

"What about him?" Abby pointed at Versa.

"There are some things even superheroes can't prevent," Versa chuckled weakly. "Besides, Altis and I really weren't that different. Both of us were willing to die for a cause. It's just I was trying to protect the world and make it a little better at the same time. And it worked. Suck on that, Altis." Then his head leaned to the side and he fell silent.

"Is Altis okay?" I asked Abby.

"You mean the other guy? I don't know. This suit of his is way too thick for me to tell."

"Help me get him out here, I don't like the way the ceiling's dropping crap." We each got under one of Altis's shoulders and weaved through the carpet of dead bodies to the portal that had brought us to wherever that was. As soon as we passed through it I could hear the cavern ceiling buckle and then I was flying again. I held onto Altis and Abby as hard as I could; I didn't know if we could be pulled apart in this little trip, but why let final victory be spoiled by taking chances.

Reentry was a little rougher this time, with the three of us landing in a heap and kicking up a cloud of dirt I heard Abby coughing on. Looking down at us were Faye, Mike and a bunch of others from our little group, clad in their power suits.

"Maybe you'd like to tell us what the hell just happened," Faye asked.

* * *

I hope you don't mind if I speed over the rest of this. It's still kind of uncomfortable to think about, even if we did win in the end.

The reason Altis wasn't moving when we dragged him out was he couldn't. Gloria Song explained to me that when he'd used that final burst, he'd also fried himself completely. Me, Abby and everyone in that little secret task force had a quiet little funeral for him and the three others that had died in the Taint invasion of Rittersburg, and we buried Altis in his Surpass armor. I was a little unsure about that, but Gloria assured me Altis's final attack had melted the components of his suit totally beyond recognition. She also assured me I didn't want to see what was left of him inside it.

Slowly but surely, Rittersburg's been recovering from the strange attack that left nearly a hundred naked, hairless corpses in its aftermath. That portal or whatever closed after we escaped, and apparently the moment the Source died, all its offspring died with it. At least, we hope so. A few people still talk about seeing monsters, but we're hoping those are just symptoms of a few lingering jitters.

Not long after we buried Altis they fixed my eye, but then I stopped hearing from Mike, Faye, and Gloria. They wouldn't answer the numbers they'd given me anymore, but on the other hand there was nothing for us to talk about with their mission accomplished. I've still got that belt in the back of my closet, but I haven't worn it since. Gloria never asked for it back, so maybe she's hoping I'll use it if those stories about surviving Taint aren't just stories.

As for Versa, it seemed like whoever was backing him got what they wanted. I haven't heard anything about soldiers who can heal themselves and evolve weapons out of their bodies. Maybe they all stopped working after the Source's death set in, maybe somewhere

Abby's band's still playing clubs, but since I'm not fighting monsters at night and writing about it in the day anymore, I've been making a point to go see them when I can. It's the least I can do for the woman who really saved the world. They're getting a little better, too.

As for me, well, after so many people saw those monsters I was writing about weren't just the products of an active imagination I did get an offer from a bigger paper and I've been chasing down stories that aren't as big, but aren't asking me to risk my life anymore either. One of the friends I've made in my new company tells me somebody from a local AM radio station was by the office asking about me the other day, when I'd be in the next town over covering a story. I'm not exactly at the top of my field thanks to the Taint story, but I'm working on it.

This concludes the journal of Madeleine Moore on the account of the Taint. I can truly say that even though it's over, I'll be looking a little more carefully the next time I hear a weird noise or someone tells me about weird things they've been seeing. Because you never really know what's out there.

Rest in peace, Masked Rider Altis.

Rest in peace, Masked Rider Versa.


End file.
